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i„M(> Google
r
•ry-c-. />-.;"
Saibacli College t-ibtarg
BOUGHT FROM GIFTS
FOR THE PURCHASE OF ENGLISH
HISTORY AND LITERATURE
"Subscription of 1916"
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AQUAMARINES
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-)
VERSES. By Charlbs Ldstxd.
tap. 8*0, bilf parchnMat M. net.
HAIUNA : A Dranutlo Bomano*.
Bofng the Shskespekrlaa "
Crowa Bto. 8a. net.
LOSDOM: GBANT BICEABDS
., Google
AQUAMARINES
NORA CHESSON
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS
B SQUABE
1902
HMOyGOOt^lC
2 3^-//, qM, 'J
harvaud collese ubuiiv
SEP 27 1917
SUBSCUPTIDN OF 1911
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DEDICATED
TO MY HUSBAND
WILFRID HUGH CHE880N
Some dlTer-coloared drnwni waVe wmtched ipu
NoTember'i twilight, Utft enchinted wulher,
And tba gTAAt erw known of no haUot'i chArL
EAlabowa ind nln an h«re ; and here are laug]
And lonDW of a ^ad and grlerfng yaar ;
But Joy ron gtra me comei before and after,
And la iu eiaiT word I write yoD, Dear.
HMOyGOOt^lC
i,fMo>Goot^[e
Thanks are due and are here paid to the Editors
of the Acadamf, Blade aad WMU, Candid Friend,
ComMU, Country Lafe, Girlt' Onm Paper, Harpers,
Idler, Lady's Realm, Leisure Hour, Longman's,
Maamllaas, Morning Post, Nem lAberal Peinerv,
Oidhok, Pall Mall GaseUe, Pilot, Sketch, and
Westminster Gazette, for permisBion to reproduce
some of the poems herein pubhshed.
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HMOyGOOt^lC
CONTENTS
i>edicat10n
Davs and Niqhts^
To a Child
The Old Century
The Snow
Glunour .
The Jester
The Inn .
The Smiter
Thus spake the Sea
Jacinth .
Jack o' Lanthorn
An Olive Leaf
A Sleep Song
The Decadent .
Winds .
The Seaweed-Gatherers .
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AQUAMARINES
Davs and NtsBTH {continued) — paok
Sleep 28
A White Night 29
SniiMt SO
Dawn 32
MooDriee at Sunset 38
The EaBt Wind S4
The Moth 36
The Moon aoa the Cloud .... 37
Shee^ ia a Storm 38
Summer Heat 3!>
By the Sea 40
A Tluadergtonn ...... 42
The Sunflower 43
OnRyeHiU 44
Cobwebs 46
Weed-Fires 47
Americana in WeatminHter Abbey ... 48
Love in September 49
AU Sonlfp- Eve 61
The Halcyon Days £3
ACarol U
lAb 66
Mat«r Dolorosa SI
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The Undyinh Oubb—
Hertba .
The Shepherd of the Sea
■ The Piper
Tescatlipoca .
The People of the Dew .
Kathsleen Nj-Houlab«n
The Short Cut to Roesee .
Dii^ for Prince Art
The Pixy Gleaner .
A Deronehire Song
Ma; Magic
The Pixies
SoNss OP Japan —
Uttle Wild Indigo .
The Woman with Niae Souls .
A GeishaSong
A JapBneae Dancer
The Prayer of RuDning Water
Tkanblations —
Honiecopee ....
OyGOOt^lC
AQUAMARINES
Tbanblatiohb (eontinu^ — rtm
The Crudfied Lilj 100
Solitude 102
The Alchen))' of Ssdnees 103
The Tulip 104
The Cracked BeU lOfi
Jack o' Lanthom 106
TheGhort 107
Heine 108
Childrbn op the Yhar —
January Ill
January Roboh 112
A Year Ago 113
February Uff
A February Day 116
Early Spring 118
March 120
Hertba at School IZl
St Patrick's Blewinge 122
After the Rain 124
April 126
Primrow Day 127
Barter Song 128
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CONTENTS
Children of ihb Year (eonttnueii) — rjtax
May : . . 129
Pear-Trees in Bloi«oin 130
June 132
The Spirit of Snmmer 133
The WMtBUD Woman 13S
MidBnmmer Eve 136
July 139
Harvest Song 140
August 141
September 142
October 143
Hallows E'en 145
November 147
At the End of November .160
December 152
Twelfth Night 1S3
MuntQBts Ififi
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
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HMOyGOOt^lC
TO A CHILD
H. B. c. (sept. 21, 1897)
Ltttlk Hngh,
Another year's grass grows on you,
Another year has trodden do:wn
The thyme, and left the bracken brown.
There is less grass for men to see.
And fewer nests in any tree.
The towns stretch wider arms afield.
And to their march the meadows yield :
But you are safe, you cannot change.
Whatever hearts the years estrange
Slowly or swiftly. You're secure,
You shall be always sweet and pure
As water from a mountain spring.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
Not ripening or withering
Shall strike the seed of change in you.
For me you never frowned or smiled.
And solenmly your memory dwells
In me, as sea-waves live in shells.
No day shall make this thought untrue.
Little child !
THE OLD CENTURY
Thr gates of Death and Life are open now.
And o'er the first gate hangs an almond hough
Thick-flowered with blossom, but without a leaf;
And o'er the second gate a beech bough swings.
Full of green leaves and rustling with birds' wings.
Less fair than almond-blossom, not so brief.
And near the door of Death the century stands
With eyes that brim with wonder ami with
grief—
An empty scabbard in her withered hands.
Men's blood is on her feet, her breast bears scars
Bome out of many wars.
HMOyGOOt^lC
THE OLD CENTURY
Her eyes are tired with looking out acrosB
Gray leagues of loss.
The smile upon her mouth is like the smile
Lips of the dead wear for a little while
Ere clay is given back again to clay.
And mourners irom the graveside turn away.
The rose upon her cheek is pale, the hair.
That once was golden as the garlands there,
Upon pale brows falls gray.
She has her back turned to the coming day,
To-morrow has no more to her to say —
Yesterday speaks too loudly in her ears.
Voices that cried at Waterloo she hears.
Behind her are the mists that overran
The camps that slept and waked at Inkerman ;
Red sands of Egypt in her tresses gleam
Instead of rubies : she has dreamed the dream
Held by the Sphinx in sleepless eyes of stone.
About her waist for zone
A sacred snake, wrought out of Indian gold.
Coils, fold on gleaming fold.
Its head b on a wound an Indian sword
T^ade, when, at bidding of the tiger-lord,
Men slew babe, maid, and mother, and a well
Ran blood instead of water. This befell
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
Long, long ago, but in her haunted eyes
Its picture never dies.
She has seen kingdoms won and islands given.
Deserts reclaimed, kings into exile driven,
And she is weary. For a hundred years
Has she not wept hot tears.
And smiled and laughed f And now her course if
And she is facing to the westering sun.
She need not smile nor weep, but evermore
Peace shall she have, because her work is done.
The almond-blossoms pave the way she goes ;
Her children call her blessed, and none knows
If lief or loath she passes through the door.
THE SNOW
Thk sqow came down, unhasting and unresting.
Fringed eveiy naked twig in fine array
Of crystal and white velvet, and its spray
Hung Irom the eaves where swallows will be nesting
In airs of April three months firom to-day.
HMOyGOOt^lC
GLAMOUR
The snow came down, and made the noisy city
A place c^ silence and white purity,
ChsDged each gaunt post to some fantastic tree
Full-fledged with silver flowers, and in its pity,
Suited in the streets and highways like a sea.
London lay white and bridal in the morning.
Wheels went upon their way without a jar.
And every city-sound was faint and &r.
Now trodden down for eveiy street-boy's scorning
Lies the white wonder, dead as some dropped star.
GLAMOUR
Out of my window I looked last night ;
Under my window the world lay white.
Strong black shadows marked bush and tree.
And I wondered long how this change might be —
Had the snow stolen on us when none could see ?
Whiter and whiter the wonder grew.
And the magic of moonlight at last I knew ;
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
With her ghostly light she liad mocked the snow,
And the sleeping houses would never know
That the streets beneath them lay glamoured so.
And I thought, as 1 looked at the street grown
strange.
How the face of the world with a dream can
change.
How love, like the moon that I could not see.
Makes whiter and fairer than snow can he
My thought of my lover, his thought of me.
THE JESTER
A Jester, a winner of empty laughter.
Grew sick of hfe, and the life hereafter,
Of sea, and sky, and the seasons four.
" I will die," he said, " as my mirth is dying,
Lie down as the fallen tree is lying
On Earth's brown bosom, and hear no more
The madman's laughter, the sage's sighing."
HMOyGOOt^lC
THE INN
The Jester went when his mood was sorest
Into the heart of the autumn forest ;
Round him and past him in nerveless haste
The dead leaves whirled in a helpless eddy.
"Here," said the Jerter, "the year makes ready
To die as gladly as I, to waste
Like wine that's spilled from a cnp unsteady."
He lay in the leaves, and a sound of laughter
Rang through the forest : before him, after,
Aroimd, above him the laughter swept.
A girl came berrying down the hedges —
The wind dropped dead at the forest edges
As a bird from the stone that a slinger fledges.
The woman came, and the man that slept
In the Jester out of the dead leaves leapt ;
He caught her hands, and her heart he kept
THE INN
" Mv door stands always open—
You weary souls, come in !
For you that tire of music.
Here silence doth begin.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
You shall not rise for dancmg.
Or follow wandering loves,
Here in my yew-boagbs whispers
Only the voice of doves.
" I'll quench yoor thirst with water.
Well-water clear and sweet ;
I'll bind about with linen
Your weaiy bands and feet.
Lie down upon my couches
That are of marble hewn.
You shall not lift your eyelids
For sun or star or moon.
" The wind, howe'er it whistles.
Shall pierce no sleeper's ear.
The rain that wails and whimpers
Can never enter here.
You shall not bear men groaning
For things that were divine.
Flung to the outer darkness,
Or trampled down of swine.
" Your peace no ghost shall trouble.
And cry of beast or foe
HMOyGOOt^lC
SHAME
ShaU sound with such a silence
As sounds the falling snow.
Darkness shall be your dwelling.
With all joQT dreams therein.
Come in," cries Death the landlord,
" You'U find no better inn."
SHAME
" I LOVE thee so, I love thee so,
I will not ever let thee go,"
Shame said, and kissed me tenderly ;
" I will be to thee for thy wife.
And all the nights and days of life
Shall find me faithful unto thee.
" The vine and peaches thou dost set
Shall bear my mark, lest thou forget.
The labour of thy weary hands
We two will eat ; we two will drink
Life's cup, and, when thy soul-fires sink,
I'll blow flame up into the brands.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
" Hate me or love me : I am thine.
My tears are in thy cup for wine,
My laughter is thy musicking ;
No strength in fennel shalt thou find
To put my weakness from thy mind.
To loosen these my hands that cling.
" I love thee so, my mate, my mate.
That when thy hearers for thee wait,
I will not wholly let thee go :
But I will plant above thy sleep
Rowers that shall my memory keep
When thou art earth in earth helow."
THE SMITER
/ AK the ttmrd :
That out of eternity came ;
Not water baptized me but flame.
Earth made me not, neither the sea.
But the fire in the earth's middle night
Drave me into the light
Sorrow I never have known.
But hunger and thirst are my own.
HMOyGOOt^lC
THE SMITER
And the joy when man lusteth to slay
His brother, and take to his prey
The woman made prize of the Iroy.
Conquered and conquerors still
Are but the slaves of my will.
No one I bow to as Lord,
Hearken to me —
I am the tnord.
I am the tteord :
Kingdoms have faUen and risen
Since I broke out of my prison.
Deep in the heart of the fire,
Shining and hot with desire.
Kingdoms shall pass and arise.
Earth he made new, and new skies ;
Love shall take Death for a friend
Ere my rule come to an end.
Angels in heaven afar.
Are they not angels of war ?
Michael bears me at his side.
Splendid, a weapon of pride.
Lucifer's sword is of light,
Supple as cord,
J am all ttvordt and kit ttoord.
»3
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
I am the smord :
Of all the tears that Have poured
Over my brightness remains
None, though a widow's, to show
Splendour was weaker than woe.
I am the maker of kings :
Man sees me gleam, and be shigs
Songs that drive onward to death.
Give me of blood and of breath.
And I will give you again
A minute that shines over pain,
Over terror and death to deny
That the spirit of man can die.
I am the changer of hfe,
Not only master of strife.
Since to my lover I lend
Peace and clear sight at the end,
/ am the tmord.
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THUS SPAKE THE SEA
THUS SPAKE THE SEA
Thus spake the Sea:
" Come down and wash the world-stains from your
hands.
And from the tumnlt of die city free
Yonr soul that cramped within your body dwells,
Like the sea-voices prisoned in old shells
Long kept in chambers that have known not me.
Come, you who know the city's best and worst.
And with my wind and water quench the thirst
That mortal has for immortality.
" I change, estrange, and ruin many lands,
Desert whom once I sought my love to be.
And for the inland places have desire.
Have I not loved and left Tarshiah and Tyre ?
And greater brides than these
Shall I not take to me, and fill with pride.
Until, world-wide,
The rumour of their splendour spreads and grows
As fragrant as a rose i
Then like to Vashti scorned and put aside
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
They shall behold new glories crowned of me :
Behold with lips that writhe and wringing hands
Their harbours empty, and their prophets cease,
ThemselveB forgotten even of their foes.
" I change from day to day, yet," said the Sea,
" Nothing of change upon myself can be.
And though I leave my lovers, and to none
Am faithliil, though the fairest 'neath the sun.
Yet whoso loves me shall be loved of me —
Yea, though I drown him. Though no human
hands
Can bind me, with a thousand silver strands
I knit men's souls to mine, and what I find
Harsh and unlovely, there I breathe my wind
And blow my foam, and that mine own I make
Till it grows clean and lovely for my sake.
£ven as the Last Day shall work change in me
And set my buried secrets once more tree.
So I change souls, and breathe my quickening
breath
On what the world has stricken with slow death.
" The earth is not more fruitful than am I.
A million lives in me are bom and die
l6
HMOyGOOt^lC
JACINTH
And change : and I «n changed not ; islands grow
Out of tny depths and they no poorer show.
The divers steal my pearls day after day
And Ironi the beach I drag but stones away.
Yet I have endless pearls for men to bear
Out of my darkness to the upper air.
Daughters of men, short-lived, my corals wear
And to the dust go down.
And I, immortal, neither smile nor frown.
For all these things are naught ; why should the Sea
Grudge pearls, that shall breed pearls when Time
is dead
And her last ray of Ught the moon has shed ? "
JACINTH
(dbaf and dumb)
Jacinth, Jacinth, where do you go
With your eyes like spring and your step like sn
Who wrought, my Jacinth, your yellow hair
In the self-same colour that daffodils wear
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
When they open first to the kiss of spring
And have heard no whisper of withering ?
Who gave you. Jacinth, your violet eyes
Where sorrow close beside laughter lies ?
Who made your face like a soft white rose
And your mouth like a blossom that no bee knows?
Who made you timid and sweet and fair
As a snowdrop first in the wintry air ?
Jacinth, turn to us, speak and say
Are you fire or air, or sweet human day ?
O little dumb mouth, will you never part
Your twin red leaves, though 1 break my heart ?
small deaf ears, will you open not
To any whisper of love begot ?
My fingers plead, and your fingers say
Half in earnest, and half in play,
" I'm half a fairy, and no one knows
The way to hold when a fairy goes."
And are you going, and must you pass,
Little sweet Jacinth f Then, alas !
1 said, alas ! that the child must go
To the light above Irom the dusk below ;
I prayed wild prayers, but at last it fell
HMOyGOOt^lC
JACK O' LANTHOEN
That Jacinth went, and I said, "'Tia well."
She never will hearken a cniel word
That other women will Hear and have heard ;
She never will say a word less sweet
Than the small red mouth that otters it ;
She never will change from gold to clay.
Jacinth, sweet, jou are well away !
JACK O- LANTHOBN
Can you not see me careless ? Can you not feel
me weak.
Dear hands upon ray heartstrings, dear lips upon
my cheek ?
Out of a world of wandering men is this the man
you seek ?
These eyes that look through yours, my dear, have
looked into the pit.
Will look again and yet again and linger over it :
For there are lights that shine at nights not all in
heaven lit,
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
If I am Jack o' Lanthom, sweet, a homelCBS
thing am I,
I cannot warm jou but must see yon cold until
you die ;
Will you not choose a homely hearth to sit and
warm you by ?
You choose the wildfire none the less, you'll
follow where I go ?
Ah ! steadfast heart and sweet heart, made strong
for me to know
Although I go 1 will return, although I change
and grow.
Or change and lessen, on your soul my wayward
soul I stay.
Your steady light my wandering light shall draw
and feed and sway ;
And I will love you, sweet, as long as Jack o'
Lanthom may.
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AN OLIVE LEAF
AN OLIVE LEAF
I AH no rose kissed scarlet by the sun.
Nor pale love-in-a-mist ;
No violet that her purple web has spun,
Dreaming of amethyst ;
I un no hair-fern, beauUfdl and brief,
Biit pale and wan I grow,^an ohve leaf.
Pale am 1, scentless, grayish-green of leaf ;
But pluck me — lay me in a hand where grief
Has set her sigil in the hollow palm.
Has set her sigil plain as spring has sealed
The iris of all flowers in the field
To be her herald when the windflowers yield
To crowns-imperial and the spreading balm.
Set me, I say, in this one graven palm,
And I shall change in all my fibres, — know
All beauty to whose heights I dare to grow.
My green shall deepen to an emerald glow.
Redden to ruby, blnsh into a rose.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
Yea, change and grow as passionately sweet
As does syringa, dying with the beat
Of the wild wings of those wild birds that nest
In the warm whiteness of a woman's breast.
So shall I breathe, bum, bloom, and wither so
Held in that hand — for whose love have I grown
Here on my branch, a gray-green leaf alone ;
To height of heart's desire reach up, and go
Content, having known the best that I could
know.
A SLEEP SONG
O Sleep, go. Sleep, hasten to my lover,
I^eave my eyeUds all ibrlom of thy quiet breath ;
Where my love lies wakeful, go thou and lean over.
Singing low, singing slow, dearest child of Death.
Fair Sleep, rare Sleep, Death that is thy father.
Night that is thy mother, both sow flowers for thee ;
White poppies dashed with dew, drowsy flowers to
gather.
Yellow rose that silence saith to the busiest bee.
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THE DECADENT
Hear, Sleep, dear Sleep, ere my song b6 ended —
Gather me thy fairest flowers a soft dream to make
For my love — a dreamof scent and of music blended.
Ay, and let me kiss the dream for the dreamer's
sake.
O Sleep, blow sleep-dust upon his pillow
Till he dreams it is my breast, and to dream is fain ;
Let him think it is my hair, not thy branch of willow.
Dark against the little Hght through the tain-
blurred pane.
THE DECADENT
DuLNBBS, less comely than grief, has gone over
my souL
Sullen and sluggish its waters of bitterness roll ;
It is uAught to me now
How the wind-stricken woods to the lash of the
nor'-wester bow.
How the bubbles are bright on the vanishing track
of the vole.
How beauty is writ on the world, as a legend is
writ on a scroll.
23
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
It is naught to rae, drunken of dulness, an alien
here.
How the peoples are trodden of anger and sorrovi
and fear;
How lust on the shoulder of love has laid tremulous
hand.
I am dull, I an) slack ;
And doubt goes before me, and following fast on
my track
A ghost I can hear stepping soft o'er the leaf-
sodden land.
I am old, I am cold,
I have trafficked for dreams in the markets where
1 have bought me a dream, and the dream of my
spirit takes toll.
And of dreams I am sick.
In the place of dead dreams, dead desires, I alone
stand up, quick —
Dulness, less comely than grief, has encompassed
my soul.
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WINDS
The vind came crying from tlie East ;
And blew the churchyard-grass aside
As if to read fo^otten names.
It tossed the very altar-flames,
And like a mourning woman cried.
Whose sorrow will not be denied :
"IlieQ in the sea-caves sank and ceased.
The wind came singing irom the West ;
And through the formal gardens ranged,
And suddenly they aU were changed.
He entered in the rose's breast.
Like any bee, and, murmuring there.
Sent a new music through the air :
Then, in mid-sweetness, fell to rest.
The wind came shouting from the North ;
As some armed warrior might come forth
Eager to slay, or to be slain.
He tore the last leaves fium the tree
And sped them shuddering o'er the plain ;
He called to heel the angry sea.
And lashed it with his scourge of rain.
"5
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
The wind came sighing from the South,
His hair a cloud, a rose his mouth ;
His eyes beneath the levfel brows
Were shadowy as forest boughs ;
His voice was tike a song one hears
In childhood, lost for many years.
Heard first with laughter, last with tears.
THE SEAWEED-GATHERERS
Bksidb the rocks that crumble, between the rocks
that feed
With drowned men the sea's hunger, we sailed to
gather weed :
We drew it up by arntiiils out of the sea that clung
To every sea-lace drippii^ with shell and sand
sea-flung.
The time was near to sunset, the sky was clear of
mist
The wind among the cliff-caves was making dreary
tryat;
...Cooj^lc
THE SEAWEED-GATHERERS
But in our stem like sunset the wreaths of red
weed were.
The green weed ahone as silkenasasea-woman'shair.
She in the boat beside me who helped me gather
store
Of seaweed green and rosy was fair and is no more ;
Her eyes were like a seagull's, her neck was white
as foam.
And I who sought but seaweed found love and
brought her home.
The night is none so dreary as was the day to me,
When wife and boat together came drifting in
from sea;
Alone she sought for seaweed, and when the storm
came down,
The creatures of the seaweed alone beheld her
drown.
I have no peace in sleeping, no comfort in the day.
For if her grave is near me, her soul is far away.
But when a-seeking seaweed the kind death comes
tome.
Church-earth will never keep her down if I lie in
the sea.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
SLEEP
" Sleep, brother of DeBth, rise tip and say
What dost thou here in the churchyard-hay ?
Thy garland is torn and thy torch is out.
On thy mouth is grief, in thine eyes is doubt.
Have men upbraided and thrust thee away ? "
Sleep said, " I have bridled and led the thunder.
And held the pale horse in a leash of wonder.
I have kept the seed of the fire alive.
And many a broken flower bade thrive ;
But I and Joy, we must part asunder.
" For man has opened the bolted door ;
He has laughed in my face, and gone before
Through fields forbidden ; the shapes I knew
He has called to heel ; he has smitten through
My dreams with the word that he dreams no more.
" Man laughs at all things, and will not weep.
With leaty laughter he covers deep
Dense coverts, where wild beasts lurk and lie.
Afraid to spring when he passes by.
Man says, ' Dreams fail me : I will not sleep.'
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A WHITE NIGHT
" What shall I do, now my reign is o'er ?
Not Death my brother can now restore
My ancient glory : 'Ms man alone.
Whose pain defies me, can heal my own."
Sleep knelt by a new grave, weeping sore.
A WHITE NIGHT
WHtTE stand the houses out in the moonless
midnight.
Here and there a window lighted yet stands plain —
Strange as a lifted eyelid in a face that slumbers —
The wakefulness behind it, is it grief or sin or
Cart on cart moves stealthily, feet on feet follow,
Wheels plod on reluctantly, creaking as they go,
A snatch ofcrazy song beats down ababy's crying —
But over all and each the silence falls like snow.
All sounds flower slowly from the heart of silence.
Not as in the daylight, shrieked at. ears a-strain :
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
Harsh sounds come less harshly, and fade before
they trouble
Ears that hear them come and go, and peace grow
whole again.
One by one the fixed lights grow paler and grow
One by one man quenches what he lit ; the stars
remain.
The gray sky whitens, with a shudder it is daylight.
Cocks are crowing sleep away, and day brings rain.
SUNSET
There's green fire in the Easting, and red fire in
the West,
The North and South are coloured like the plumes
on a dove's breast ;
The wind's down, but the aspens take yet no
thought of rest.
ITiere's not a bird's nest in them, but endlessly
they sway
Throughout the windless twilight as through the
windy day,
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Though the nun stays for whose coming the
poplar leaves turned gray.
The hill above us darkens with a crown of ash and
oak.
Its flanks are clothed ^vith gorses, and upon its
neck for yoke
It wears the fallen elm-trees that the last thunder
A gray stain to the southward tells of ships upon
the sea:
A cry from hidden coverts tells where the moor-
hens he :
A white flash in the grayness — the owl has left
her tree.
The darkness narrows round us the lands that lay
so wide —
I cannot tell the ash-tree from the alder at her
Nor know the homeward way of these three roads
that here divide,
But for the lowing cows that come, slow-footed,
down the ride.
HMOyGOOt^lC
DAYS AND NIGHTS
DAWN
Streab upon streak of turquoise in a sheet of
heavy gray,
A space of shining silver where the clouds are
torn away.
Stars growing pale in heaven o'erhead, and, lower
A iringe of amber touches the roofs of the sleeping
town.
Shadowy wains and waggoners steal slow and
softly by.
There is no sudden swish of whips, there is no
carter's cry.
Upon the lips that cease from speech, the lids
that fain would rest,
A little wind comes whispering out of the Ughtless
Lamps in the road are quenched and die because
the day's begun.
Although there's half an hour to wait ere men
salute the sun.
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MOONRISE AT SUNSET
Steps of a homeless woman sound hollow down
the street.
Laugh of a man rings noisily where man and
woman meet.
And change with languid eyes and lips a fire of
idle words,
A cry of foolish laughter.
Then sUence ; and the birds.
MOONRISE AT SUNSET
Thin as a bubble, empty of light and listless.
The moon rose pale, and the eastern sky was gray
With the rain that had been, and away in the
west, resistless,
A crimson flood surged up where the dead sun lay.
The sun lay dead in a sea of fire, and splendid
In death he took all light Irom the sky around ;
His battle lost and won, and bis day's race ended
He lay, and the place of his death was holy
ground.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
The sun lay dead, enwrapped in a shroud of
splendour.
The moon, his heir, arose in the pallid east ;
Colourless, meek, she fronted the west to render
Homage to that swift runner whose race had
ceased.
Pale, she took light from the dead ; the p^e clouds j
breasting.
She gathered light as she rose with her face to
the sun,
Unhasting she went her way, she went unresting.
And the west grew pale as the east, and the night
was begun.
THE EAST WIND
The white wind of the South it blows from far away.
The black wind of the North from the gates of
Hell is driven.
The gray wind of the West, maybe she blows from
Heaven,
But the red wind, the East wind's the wind of the
judgment day,
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THE EAST WIND
The white wind and the ^y wind they bring the
The black wind and the gray wind they carry
storm and snow ;
But when the East wind's blowing, the sleeping
dead they know
By the breath upon their feet that 'tis time to rise
again.
No ghost can wake from slumber when the North
and West winds blow ;
llie dead lie still and stir not, in their yellowing
cerecloths bound ;
But when the E^st wind rustles the dead leaves
above ground.
It is the dead men's holiday, and back to earth
they go.
They open close-sealed chambers, and they rustle
up the stairs ;
They enter hearts that know them and hearts that
have forgot :
They leave beside love's rosemary tear-wet foiget-
me-not.
For the East's the wind of memory, and nothing
else is theirs.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
THE MOTH
Lkt the white moth go by.
Because some wandering spirit it may be
That loves the kindly earth so close and dear.
It cannot break the bonds that keep it here.
The day's for us and all the daylight cheer;
Twilight's for delicate things more glad than we.
Moths have their right as well as Inrds to fly ;
L«t the white moth go by.
Let the white moth go by :
It has a mate whose wings shine silverly
Somewhere beneath the moonhght, calling it
To join its airy dances, and to knit
Two joys in one, for very fall must be
The little lives that two suns cannot see —
Because we love our childhood, you and I,
And would not let one delicate memory die.
And know our kinship to all lives that are.
To every dewdrop and each falling star —
Let the white moth go by.
HMOyGOOt^lC
THE MOON AND THE CLOUD
THE MOON AND THE CLOUD
Thb trees vera iiill of voices ; the night was irarm ;
A white cloud shaped like an arm lay across the
Stars hung over its wrist in a starry chain,
And one star dropped and rushed down to dark-
ness and death.
I leaned from my window and looked, and I drew
quick breath.
For the moon was rising eastwards ; and lo, the
Beached to the moon with fingers greedy to hold,
To clutch OS a miser does, though it could not
This pearl-white blossom, sickle-shaped, Ughttess,
cold.
About whose folded petals the star-bees swarm.
The leaves talked on. Mid the breath of the night
was balm;
The moon rose up and lay in the open palm
And gathered hght therefrcNn, and my fear was
nought,
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
For the hand with menace and danger was nowise
fraught.
Brighter and brighter it grew, and slowly rose.
Growing bright and warm as a girl's face grows
Turned to her lover. Slowly it gathered light
From the holding hand, and out of the fingers
Slid, and shone free and alone in the whispering
night.
SHEEP IN A STORM
The storm comes slowly up the skies.
The valley in its shadow lies.
Yet still a light as faint as hope
Lies all along the sheep-trimmed slope
And fain would save the distant tower
From darkness yet another hour.
But vainly from the tempest flies.
The herons from the marsh have gone,
Beholding how the dark draws on.
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SUMMER HEAT
The beech-tree yonder on the hill,
Where silly sheep are feeding stlU,
'Twixt Ught and lightning shuddering stands,
A landmark between alien lands —
Each leaf aghast in the hot breath
That whispers to all trees of death.
The sheep feed stohdly, nor know
How near their heads the lightnings go.
The old tower not more careless stands
Of human wrath and human hands
Than these meek things that without fear
The hghtnings see, the thunders hear.
Nor cease from feeding to and fro.
SUMMER HEAT
The very flagstones of the street
Are hot beneath the passers' feet.
The languid lilies droop their heads.
The pollen that the larkspur sheds
Is heavy on the heavy bee.
And dazed with too much light is he.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
The torch-flowers in the garden beds
Have quenched their glowing golds and reds ;
The swans are hidden in the reeds,
And if Pan pipes no Dryad heeds.
They all are sleeping in the brake —
Sleeping so sound they will not wake
For any goat-hoofed piper's sake.
The balsam snaps her wingM seeds
On every little wind that flies
Listless beneath unshadowed skies.
The heart of man is overweighed
With brightness : he desires the shade
And whispering waters lapsing down
Towards the sea where all dreams iade
In that green depth where sailors drown.
BY THE SEA
Over the western waters the clouds are edged
with flame,
Eastward hovers the darkness whence last the
lightning came,
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BY THE SEA
There's a strange voice in the eveniog air, a
strsnge breath &om the sea,
And far away in London my lover dreams of me.
The long streets close about him, the miles of
brick and stone.
His are the town-stained plane trees, wherein the
wind makes moan,
The creeper by his window drops down its yellow-
ing leaves,
And in its cage of wicker his neighbour's pigeon
grieves.
Mine are the wild sea-swallows, the sparrow-hawk
that towers,
The mallow and the poppy, and all cliff- loving
flowers.
Mine are the crimson seaweeds, and nune the
long, gray downs.
The sharp cliffs edged with umber, with chalk-
weed for their crowns.
Our bodies that are severed have souls that cannot
part.
And in my beating bosom I feel my lover's heart,
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
Through e^es of mine he watches the stonn that
drifts away.
He hears as I am hearing the voices of the bay.
And while the slow wave lapses, and slowly comes
I hear as he is hearing the branches of the plane,
I hear the pigeon crooning, and shed on him and
me
Tliere comes out of the sea-mist the comfort of
A THUNDERSTORM
The sea is full, and over-fiill,
The waves are edged with foam like wool :
Does Proteus shear his flocks to-night ?
It seems so thick with fleeces white.
The sky is like a copper shield.
Brought broken from a battle-field ;
Between its rents the hghtnings leap,
Tryst with the meeting clouds to keep.
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THE SUNFLOWER
The wind cries like a child to-night :
Its breath has turned the poplars white ;
The iTy shnddeis on the wall,
And petals of red lilies &1L
A moment, and the world is dumb :
The moment ere the thunders come ;
The earth holds breath 'twist fear and pain.
Then, childlike, floods her fear with rain.
THE SUNFLOWER
Thk Sunflower bows upon her breast
Her golden head, and goes to rest,
Fotgetting all the dajrs that were
When she was young and proud and fair ;
And in the glowing August air
Bees came and sought and found her sweet
Now earth is cold about her feet.
And wasps forsake her, and the sun
No longer seeks her for the one
Flower in his splendid image made.
Her beauty's done, her farewell said.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
Her Urge leaves fold in weary wise.
And heavy are her great brown eyes.
The living rubies that would run
Across her discs that mocked the sun —
The ladybirds sleep, every one.
The great stalk stoops towards the earth
Where all dreams end, whence all have birth.
The hive-bee has forgotten quite
How once he loved her, for the nJght
Has come wherein no bee can spy
Sweets in thb sunflower, dead and dry
ON RYE HILL
Grben meadows after the rainfall look like spring:
We pass along them, lazily loitering.
White flowers in the deep grass move at the touch
of a white moth's wing :
The cattle are still in the meadow, and high on
chehiU
The sheep are still.
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ON RYE HILL
A robin sings in the hawthorn that leans so low
Bowed by the weight of its haws, and the black-
berries show
DeUcate blossom, and fruit that deepens from red
Into the perfect black, and the deep-thomed
branches spread ,
Traps in the yellowing grass for the careless feet
that fare
This way in the lover's twilight, and up from the
alders there
A cloud of swallows rises and dances high in the
Bells leap up to us, following with chime upon
chime
Us OS we chmb
Up past the alder coolness, the hazel screen.
Over us now no trees but the oaks stand green ;
Beautiful, steadfast, grave, they gather and stand
Guarding the dimpling land.
And far away where the girdle of oaks shps free —
Behold, the sea.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
COBWEBS
Thi: cobwebs late so finely spun
By cunning spiders in the sun,
H&ng glimmering, fringed with shining rs
Round drops of molten silver form.
Flash, fall, and slowly form again.
The last, lost children of the storm.
All down the flowerless garden walk
The cobwebs hang from stalk to stalk.
Full-fringed with rain : the pink is knit
To the tall rose that neighboured it
When June was at her height of noon.
And skies of evening knew no whit
Of mist that wraps the huntei^iS moon.
The sunHower to the phlox is bound
By silken chains of filmy stuff,
Soft as the seed-sheaths underground
Waiting till winter's skein is wound
And Earth of frost has had enough.
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WEED- FIRES
Then rose and phlox uid pink abaii rise
Unchained, that now with cobweb-ties,
Unwilling neighbours, wait the pjre
Of dead leaves and the cleansing fire.
WEED -FIRES
Now every little garden holds a haze
That tells of longer nights and shorter days ;
HandMs of weeds and outcast garden-folk
Yield up their lives and pass away in smoke.
The leaves of dandeUons, deeply notched,
Bum with the thistle's purple plumes, unwatched
Of any eyes that loved them yesterday —
They light a sullen flare, and pass away.
The small fires whimper softly as they bum,
Tbey murmur at the hand that will not turn
Back on the dial and bring to them again
June's turqucHse skies or April's diamond rain.
" Alas," the weeds are crying as they smoulder,
" We are grown wiser with our growing older ;
We know what summer is — but ah ! we buy
Knowledge too dear ; we know, because we die."
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
AMERICANS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
The poet's nnftrble breast was fall of roBes,
Red damask roses spilling heavy scent,
Strange feet were echoing down the twllit closes,
Where cloistered feet once went.
Strange lips were speaking natneB that we re-
member.
Lips of our kith and kin from oversea ;
The wistful spendthrift sunshine of September
Was fiill of memory.
The poets stood together, smiling, dreaming.
Looking away to lands of hearts' desire.
And over graven brasses there ran gleaming
A finger shaped of fire.
A child drew back before the sudden raying.
With tund held over his enchanted eyes,
"Look where you put your foot," I heard him
saying,
" It's there that Gladstone lies."
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LOVE IN SEPTEMBER
The English poets smiled, thoogh they we
flowerless.
For round them flower-faces went and came,
And for an afternoon i^d Time was powerless
To make men fear his name.
America brought roses to her poet.
Better than any heartsease gardens grow ;
Roses fiill-blown, roses in bud, all know it.
The secret Hiawatha could not know.
LOVE IN SEPTEMBER
Thk garden lay about us twain
Hoarding its sweets up for the rain ;
We clung together, you and I,
And heard the minutes hurrying by.
Heart against heart beat heavily.
Your eyes through twilight sought for mine.
My lips drank love from yoUrs like wine.
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DAYS AND NIGHl'S
Our lips together met and clung —
Our love stood beautiful and young
And watched us While the minutes spun
Webs of delight not yet undone.
While our lips, kissing, would not part ;
While all the night beat like a heart
Fuller of fire than any sun ;
And one great star and only one
Above us for a lantern hung.
My hand in yours so closely lay,
I felt your pulse beat like my own ;
I breathed your breath, and in my brain
The seed of your own thought was sown.
The garden walls seemed far away.
The scent of flowering mint was blown
About us in the gloaming gray,
Alx>ut us as oiu' lips climg close
As flash and peal, as bee and rose.
But flash and peal and cloud were not.
Twilight and scent for us begot
Dehcate dreams, and for our sake
No bat, or buzzing chafer came
The happy silences to break.
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ALL SOUI^' EVE
^ We kissed, and to the lighted room
Came, carrying with us like perfume
As lovely as the rose's name,
The memory of the twilight sweet
In shining eyes and laggard feet.
ALL SOULS' EVE
From sea-ooze and irom river-bed, from church-
yards old and new.
The dead men rise and seek their own, and I, my
dear, seek you.
Against your hair, against your hand, my kissing
lips I set :
My heart beats on your heart again, Margaret.
Ogood it is to see old love re-lighted in your eyes,
As we meet down by the river beneath October
skies!
O good it is to touch your hand and know that
you forget
The grave -dust that has clogged my feet,
Margaret!
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
I had not known you, too, were dead, my sweet,
until to-day ;
I wondered that no footstep came to strike fire
through my clay.
But glad I am to know no man will see Time's
passing &et
The pallid ilower of your face, Margaret.
Did you think long as I thought long before
our hands might meet.
And are you glad as I am glad that here our
wandering feet
Are stayed that might have strayed so far afield,
and never met
On any kind November Eve, Margaret ?
And are'you glad as I am ^ad that we have died
so young.
Before the May dew off my feet, the honey off
your tongue
Had died and dried ? And are you glad there is
no period set
To this, our loving after death, Margaret f
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THE HALCYON DAYS
And are you glad the wan water rose to your
lips, and sealed
You to be always fresh and fair as any flower in
field?
And are you glad the fever tit a fire no wind
could fi«t
And burned my body unto death, Mai^aret ?
ft b my soul that holds your soul, and not my
hand of clay
That holds your hand, and from your hair wrings
the cold dew away :
That feels old love alive again and knoweth no
regret.
But blesses Death we died so young, MargareL
THE HALCYON DAYS
(hid- December)
The Halcyon Days are drawing near,
The strangest time of all the year.
When, for a small bird's brooding sake,
The gathered storm forbears to break ;
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
The north wind moves not on the deep.
The east wind bows herself to sleep,
And winter spares the water-ways.
Because these are the halcyon's days.
But seven quiet days shall run
Beneath calm airs and gentle sun.
And then the halcyon's hrood shall be
Hatched out ; and earth and air and sea
Shall feel the north wmd and the east
Blow sharp and snell on man and beast ;
The nipping fingers of the frost
Shall kill the flowers November tossed
Out from her basket, to make cheer
For the last days of the old year.
The Christmas rose shall grow more pale
To hear the ratUe of the hail.
The holly all her prickles need
To keep her berries safe indeed
From thievish fingers of the wind.
But we who sit beside the fire.
Or trudge a-cold through fog and mire.
Will keep awhile in grateful mind
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A CAROL
Those seven soft days when no storm stirred
About a brooding mother-bird ;
And will not carp at slipper; ways,
Remembering the Halcyon Daya.
News for all women, the serving, the sinning —
Evil is dead and a new reign beginning :
To-day in a stable a maid brings to birth
The desire of the ages, the hope of the earth.
Joshua prefigured Him, Eve, overthrown
Lady of Eden, dreamed Him for her own.
Out of the darkness of nebulous things,
Lo ! He has come to be King of all kings,
Lord of all lords : and His throne is a manger ;
Cattle feed by Him, the beautiful Stranger.
Servants He has not, His pleasure to do,
His nurse is a peasant in mantle of blue ;
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
She holds Him so safe in the fold of her arm,
No wind can creep thither to work to His harm ;
She gives Him her milk from a bountiiiil breast.
She croons to the Godhead and rocks Him to rest
Kings, principalities, angels, and powers.
Come ye and look at this comfort of ours.
Light of the uttermost lands shall He be :
Raise up the dead, tread the labouring sea ;
Fisher of men shall He be ere He dies —
Now He but laughs through a baby's sweet eyes.
Laughing and sleeping a suckling hes He,
Lord of the earth and the air and the sea.
LAlS
She was the lightest woman in the land ;
The homeless thistledown into your hand
You might charm sooner, or the wildfire thrall.
Than bring ber wandering fancy to your call.
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MATER DOLOROSA
Some few possessed her : many more desired
To keep and tame her, but no man grew tired
Of this slight thing, more swift to come and go
Than a bird's shadow flickering on the snow.
Her body's flower died, her soul went out :
Poor little gilded taper, blown about
By the great wind of Death — you were but meant
To light some little room o'erbrimmed with scent.
Poor rose, whose last red leaves drop slowly down.
Not to smell sweet again in wreath or crown —
Mimosa, touched and killed by careless hands,
God speed your scared soul in those lightless
MATER DOLOROSA
A WINTER BONO
Earth takes but tittle pleasure to remember—
Being a widow now, that was a wife —
How sweet May was, how bountiful September,
What wayward music AjHil'a chanter blew.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS
Her leaping fires of life
Bum down beneath the fall of frosty dew.
And dwindle slowly to the last red ember
That is December.
She knows not how it went, the Linus-song
Whose burden the brown reapers bore along
As they brought home the sheaves.
Nay, though the thistle yielded figs, from thorn
Though purple grapes were bom,
She would not wonder. She is past surprise ;
The certainty of grief is in her eyes.
And that she once was glad she scarce believes.
She dares not pay for summer to return.
Against her eyelids bum
The tears th&t fall not, — for what use are tears ?
Above her head a naked plane-tree rears
Wild arms of all despair.
Reaching out blindly through the frosty air
For its beloved leaves that rotting lie
Where Winter with his m«iie has passed by.
Under the touch <^ their empoisoned spears.
The fair and gallant wood
...Cooj^lc
MATER DOLOROSA
That all the summer-time green-coated stood,
Stands naked to the bone, and wrings its hands
Above the altered lands.
Earth watches while her Uttle children die,
The frozen wasp, the starving butterfly —
She has no tears for them, but in her heart
Knife-edged the Seven Sorrows wake and start
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HMOyGOOt^lC
THE UNDYING ONES
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HMOyGOOt^lC
HERTHA
I AM the spirit of all that Uves,
Labours and loses and for^ves :
My breath's the wind among the reeds,
I'm wounded when a bircb-tree bleeds.
1 am the clay nest 'neath the eaves
And the young life wherewith it brims.
The silver minnow where it swims
Under a roof of lily-leaves
Beats with my pulses ; from my eyes
The violet gathered amethyst ;
I am the rose of winter skies.
The moonlight conquering the mist
1 am the bird the falcon strikes.
My strength is in the kestrel's wing.
My cruel^ is in the shrikes.
My pity bids the dock leaves grow
Large, that a little child may know
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THE UNDYING ONES
Where he 8h»U heal the nettle's sting.
I am the snowdrop and the snoWj
Dead amber, and the living fir —
The corn-sheaf and the harvester.
My craft is breathed into the fox
When, a red cub, he snarls and plays
With his red vixen. Yea, I am
The wolf, the hunter, and the lamb ;
I am the slayer and the slain.
The thought new-shapen in the braitL
I am the ageless strength of rocks ;
The weakness that is all a grace.
Being the weakness of a flower.
The secret on the dead man's face
Written in his last Uving hour.
The endless trouble of the seas
That fret and struggle with the shore.
Strive and are striven with evermore —
The changeless beauty that they wear
Through all their changes ; all of these
Are mine. The brazen streets of heU
I know, and heaven's gold ways as well.
MortaUty, eternity.
Change, death, and hfe are mine — are me.
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THE SHEPHERD OF THE SEA
THE SHEPHERD OF THE SEA
I AH a migh^ shepherd, and many are my flocks ;
I lead them, I feed them among the weedy rocks.
My shepherd's crook is fashioned out of a Norway
pine.
And there's no sheep-dog in the world will herd
these flocks of mine.
My fold is wide, and day and night the walls shift
of my fold.
No upland, no lowland my lambing ewes withhold
From the cry of their shepherd, the beckoning of
his hand ;
For my own desert places they leave the pasture-
land.
With wild white fleeces surging about me to my
knee,
I go about my herding, the Shepherd of the Sea ;
f call to the rock-pastures the white sheep of the
For they but find their grazing where sailors find
their graves.
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THE UNDYING OSES
I am a mighty shepherd, and mighty flocks have 1 ;
1 lead them, I feed them while stars are in the sky ;
And when the moon is waning on sheltered shore
and lee,
I rest not nor slumber, the Shepherd of the Sea.
THE PIPER .
Thk Piper comes and the Piper goes.
His pipe is carven of willow-wood.
One tune of it changes our beating blood
To water : another tune he blows
And fire's in our feet, but no man knows
If sad or glad be the Piper's mood.
He plants sweet grapes and he gathers sloes.
Uproots the cherry, and leaves the weed,
Leans on a spear, though his hand must bleed,
And loveless ever mid lovers goes,
Though all hearths listen for him, he knows.
And covered for him is the fire's red seed.
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TEZCATLIPOCA
The Piper's eyes are as deep as the sea.
Sea-gray, sea-green : and what man can tell
That meets his eyes if 'tis ill or well
To look and forget, or remember and be
For ever under the Piper's spell,
Swayed by him as a wind-swayed tree ?
Over the world the red wind blows.
Darkens the sea and veils the sun.
The Piper under the twilight goes
And shepherds our wandering wills as one :
The web of our thoughts is by him undone.
Who leads the Piper there's no oae inawB.
TEZCATLIPOCA!
(the k
Of old they called me Mocker. Those I mocked
Lie with dumb lips and eyeUds sealed with night.
Upon their souls to-day I have no might,
' la the Aztec mythology Tezcatlipoca, the Night
Wind, was also the Mocker, the Youth who never grew
old, and Death himself.
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THE UNDYING ONES
And all the doors my laughter burst are locked.
Men's sheaves of shame by their own hands are
shocked.
And little for my mockery I glean,
Although my laugh is heard, my shadow seen
Wherever graves are dug or cradles rocked.
Shorn am I of some splendour day by day.
Robbed of some terror every night that falls.
I can make towers rock and crumble walls
And pluck the seed of hfe out of the clay.
But on man's fear my heart may no more feed ;
I, once man's Mocker — I am mocked indeed.
THE PEOPLE OF THE DEW
If you can rokker Bomony
And wish the gipsy well.
Come tramp the fern beside me
Up hill and over feU.
I'll show you where the deadwort grows.
Where witchbells cluster blue,
And where the foxgloves ring at night
For People of the Dew.
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THE PEOPLE OF THE DEW
They're wayward folk and wandering
And wastrel folk as we —
They take their gear where'er it comes.
They love no walls to see.
They milk the kye and scare the birda,
A gay and idle crew —
And spae the stars like Romanies,
The People of the Dew.
Like us, they come from far away.
Like us, must wander far ;
Their kin is Jack o' Lanthom
And eveiy falling star.
They're of the water and the wind,
And of the fixed earth, you :
But nought can stay and nought affray
The People of the Dew.
Whoever hears them singing
Will love no other song.
Whoever sees them dancing.
Must rise and tramp along.
And take the highway far his path
Winter and summer through.
And follow, follow till he finds
The 'People of the Dew.
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THE UNDYING ONES
They're hiding in the elder-tree.
And in the bracken brown.
And one will go in tattered rags.
One in a silken gown.
But you may know them by their eyes,
That sorrow never knew.
They've looked on life and looked past death.
The People of the Dew.
KATHALEEN NY-HOULAHAN
O Kathaueen Ny-Houlahan, your &ce ia like a
Your face has led me to your feet o'er wastes and
waters far;
Your face has made a day for me where only
twilights are,
O Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, my star !
Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, why loved I aught
but you ?
1 took a woman to my wife, and kind she was and
true,
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KATHALEEN NY-HOULAHAN
But your gray eyes shone out on me within her
eyes of blue.
And, Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, my soul went alter
you.
Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, it's old I am and gray,
1 see the dead leaves blown about the closing of
my day ;
The dead leaves, the red leaves, are rotting in my
O Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, to-day.
O Kathaleen Ny-HouIahan, my Eily's grave is green.
And I've grown old a-seeking your face through
tears and teen ;
I'll turn my feet from this strait path, where your
white feet have been
And turned the dry ferns young again and green,
I'll turn my feet from every path but one — the
churchyard way :
I'll shut my eyes to every star, and sleep my fill
till day;
"Hb EUy will awake me, and you it is will say
" lUse up, play up, old piper, 'tis the dawning of
the day."
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THE UNDYING ONES
THE SHORT CUT TO ROSSES
By the short cut to Rosses a fairy girl I met,
I was taken in her beauty as a fish is in a net.
The fern uncurled to look at her, so very fair was she,
With her hair as bright as seaweed new-drawn
from out the sea.
By the short cut to Rosses ('twas on the first of May]
I heard the fturies piping) and they piped my
heart away ;
They piped till I was mad with joy, but when 1
was alone
I found my heart was piped away and in my breast
a stone.
By the short cut to Rosses 'tis I'll go never more.
Lest she should also steal my soul that stole niy
heart before.
Lest she tftke my soul and crush it like a dead
leaf in her 2iand,
For the short cut to Rosses is the way to Fairyland.
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DIRGE FOR PRINCE ART
DIRGE FOR PRINCE ART
(desired by the fairies, and beino cold to
THBH, SLAIN BY AN ELF-BOLT)
White of skin uid brown of bair.
Here, be lies who bas done with care.
Goibnu's fesst called long for him,
Manan's guests made a song for him.
He who eats at Goibnu's feast
May not be hurt by man or beast ;
He who listens to Manan's song
Hears no other his whole life long,
Manan's guests, and Goibnu's kin,
All in vain they called him in.
Naught he heeded the merrows' call.
Though soft they sang to him one and all.
Naught he heeded of charm or spell.
Holy thorn-tree or haunted well ;
Naught he heeded of sowlth or shee.
Or fruit that grew on the quicken-tree.
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THE UNDYING ONES
Wandering signs in the sky he knew.
Magic of moonlight, rsin and dew :
Turned his steps not for foul or £ur,
Long though they for his soul set snare.
Neither has won him. Here he lies
Sleeping under the wakeful skies.
The stars behold him, the wind has ears —
Ah ! but he neither sees nor hears.
Call to him, cry to him, wind and rain.
Breath of the clover, o'er him again
Pass and tarry, if he should wake :
Earth, be moved for his sleeping sake !
Here's the beauty we thought to win.
And the light is quenched that shone bright within
Here's the body we loved and slew :
Art, but where is the soul of you ?
Cover softly the quiet face,
Leaves are thick in his sleeping-place.
The soul of him goes far and free
And the body's left to the Lianan-sidhe.
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THE PIXY GLEANER
Empty hands we have folded close
Over buds of the gipsy-rose :
Over his breast and the arrow there
We have laid a mantle of maiden-hair.
We that watched at his head and feet.
Yield our watch to the meadowsweet ;
We that loved him and could not win
Breathing body or soul within —
We, immortal, who cannot weep.
Give OUT grief to the winds to keep.
Here we have all we knew of fair —
White of skin and brown of hair,
Ulultt!
THE PIXY GLEANER
From candle-douting to candle-teening
I labour at the weary gleaning :
The scattered ears I gather up.
Eat of your bread, drink of your cup ;
And yet no ray of light can guide you
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THE UNDYING ONES
To guess a Pixy works beside yoa —
You of your wisdom overweening.
I only of my wayward clan
Accept the food and wage of man :
I labour in your fields all day.
Whence my own folk have fled away.
No voices call me to the moor
When at the noon the heat grows sore —
I bear my burden as I can.
My fairy birthright I have lost ;
And yet 1 never grudge the cost.
Because of one who gleans beside me.
Whose cloud of russet hair shall hide me
From Sorrow, who goes seeking ever
For hearts to break and lives to sever.
The running brooks for her 1 crossed :
Thresholds of human homes I passed.
My lot among you mortals cast.
Because a gleaner's eyes were kind,
A gleaner's voice rang down the wind
Like a bird's music, lost in leaves.
I'll bind a whole green shire of sheaves
If she will love me at the last.
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A DEVONSHIRE SONG
A DEVONSHIRE SONG
Rich is the red earth country and &ir beneath the
Her orchards in their whiteness show when April
waters run ;
Fair show they in their autumn green when red
their apples glow.
And yet aloveliercountiyis that I'm wisht to know.
The country has no borders, the country has no
Its people are as homeless as any marish-flame ;
But kind they are, and beautiful, and in their
golden eyes
Their lovers see the gleam that drew out Eve
from Paradise.
O happy Pixy-people that dance and pass away.
That hope not for to-morrow nor grieve for
yesterday,
O happy Pixy-people, would that I went with you,
The way the red leaves travel when the harvest
moon is new.
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THE UNDYING ONES
You fear no blight in summer that kills the grow-
ing com.
Your hearts have never sunk to see the sun rise
red at mom.
The brown spate in the river, the drowned face
in the Dart
Have never dimmed a Pixy's eye or hurt a Pixy's
heart
But I have seen the river rise and draw my lover
down;
And since the Dart has shrunken too low to let
me drown.
And be at peace beside him, why I would lose
this soul
That makes the daylight dusk to me, since last
Dart took her toll.
Oh Pixies, take this heavy soul and make me light
as you,
I care not though one day I pass away like drying
1 only care to sleep no more, to dream no more,
Far from the red earth country, and the cruel
streams 1 know .
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MAY MAGIC
MAY MAGIC
We three went out together —
Margery, Maud, and I,
In April's tast soft weather,
£re the May dawn drew nigh.
We washed our faces in May-dew,
And saw the moon fade in the blue
Waste highlands of the sky.
We maids went out a-Maying,
To seek what we could find,
And fairy pipes were playing
Before us and behind.
We could not see the Pixy-folk,
Nor hear the moeking words they spoke,
For blowing of the wind.
Maud found a black lamb straying.
And took the sheepfold way,
Margery went a-Maying
Sullen, but came back gay,
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THE UNDYING ONES
Because she found an amber comb.
She took a fairy treasure home ;
I only brought home may.
When in her yellow tresses
The amber comb we see.
Wives cm-se, and no man blesses
This maid called Margeiy.
Her beauty is a hunter's snare.
Men's souls are netted in her hair
And cannot come forth tree.
We three heard pixies blowing
Their pipes ; two of the three
Can hear the long grass growing,
The winter wind can see.
Maud's in her grave, nor cores nor knows
Whether the stray lamb comes or goes.
And I am A3 a folded rose
Till a Pixy gather me.
HMOyGOOt^lC
THE PIXIES
THE PIXIES
Havx e'er you seen the Pixies, the folk not blest
or banned?
They walk upon the waters, they sail upon the
knd,
They make the green grass greener where'er their
footsteps &11,
The wildest hind in the forest comes at their call.
They steal from bolted linneys, they milk the kye
at grass,
The maids are kissed a-milking, and no one hears
them pass.
They flit from byre to stable and ride unbroken
foals.
They seek out human lovers to win them souls.
The Pixies know no sorrow, the Pixies feel no fear.
They take no care for harvest or seedtime of the
year;
Age lays no finger on them, the reaper time goes
by
The Pixies, they who change not, grow old or die.
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THE DNDYING ONES
The Pixies, though they love us, behold us pass
And are not sod for flowers they gathered
yesterday.
To-day has crimson foxglove, if purple hose-in-hose
Withered last night To-morrow will have its
HMOyGOOt^lC
SONGS OF JAPAN
HMOyGOOt^lC
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UMfii
Um^, Flower-o'-the-Plum,
Out from your shadows come :
Round roofs the swallows say,
" Winter was yesterday.
Spring is to-morrow."
Come, heal my sorrow
TTiat winter-long went dumb :
Come to me, come,
Um6, Flower-o'-the-Hum !
Um£, Flower-o' -the- Plum,
Into the garden come ;
Little green leaves unclose
In promise of a rose,
A green sword seeks the light
Where lilies will be white ;
But my heart flowerless goes.
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SONGS OF JAPAN
Vm6, Flower-o'-the-Plum,
Waken and rise and come.
The little seeds grow great for you.
The buried blossoms wait for you :
The rain-doors open stand —
Early I watch and late for you
Since flower-time Is at hand.
Um6, Flower-o'-the-Plnm,
'Tis that you will not come.
Roots of the weeping willow '
You've chosen for your pillow
lUther than this my breast.
Then let me be your guest.
Be blind like you and dumb,
Near you take root and rest,
Um£, Flower-o'-the-Plum !
LITTLE WILD INDIGO
Little Wild Indigo sings and dances
Like a fountain falling, a rush wind-blown.
She is light as a bird and straight as a lance is.
Brighter than fire are her black eyes' glances.
Her mouth is a rose and her heart a stone ;
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LITTLE WILD INDIGO
But her kiss is sweet, and a thousand chances
A man would face, if beyond the dim
Edge of the star that as Earth is known
Little WUd Indigo waited him.
She dwells at the sign of the Flowering Cherry,
She serves all comers with cups of wine ;
"Her mouth is sad and her eyes are merry.
And all desire her, and none divine
If that hid soul is a clear gray lake.
Or a mountain hollow the earth-fires shake,
A flower mud-rooted, a broken shrine.
Or a tree by the wayside whose bud and beny
All idle hands in the world may take.
She is whiter than foam, she is slighter far
Than gossamer caught in the hedgerow's net ;
She was bom in grief 'neath an evil star.
And the mark of sin on her soul is set.
But whoso sees her will not forget.
And whoso loves her will sorrow long.
And labour sadly, and travel far.
Ere out of his dreams departs this face
Of a lily grown in a miry place —
This wildflower, trodden where dancers throng.
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SONGS OF JAPAN
THE WOMAN WITH NINE SOULS
The Gods that give and undo and withhold and
gather.
The Gods that darkened the lamp in my lather's
The Gods that lighted their flame in the heart of
my father.
Gave, for the greatening of grief, to this body of
mine-
Souls that are nine.
Soul of the water of tears, soul of sea-water,
Soul of an earth-clod, soul of the fire divine.
Souls of hope, and fear, and desire, hope's daughter,
Soul of a flower, and soul of the crystal fine —
My souls are nine.
My flower-soul Iwighs when Spring brings flowers
to the cherry,
My sea-soul bums when the sun turns the sea to
wine.
My soul of earth in the season of harvest's merry ;
But how shall I comfort the sorrowful souls of mine ?
My soub are nine.
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A GEISHA SONG
How shall I turn my maiden heart to a lover 7
My fire-soul seeketh a fire-soul to be mine ;
Then my desire with water of tears brims over.
And all my Ufe hes waste like a broken shrine :
My souls are nine.
Ah ! gods too lavish, great gods of the lord my
father,
Undo your gift that has marred my life's design
With too much colour. Undo it, or slay me rather,
For I at the wind's will sway, and no love is mine
Whose souls are nine.
A GEISHA SONG
At the sign of the Beckoning Kitten
We geishas dwell ;
Over our doorway is written
"Hail and &reweU."
Broad is our gateway and litten.
Full of sounds as a shell and bright as a star,
lliat all men passing and pausing may surely tell
Here lightness and laughter are.
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SONGS OF JAPAN
Than the foam of the sea we are lighter ;
No Bouls have we
To lose, or to wane, or grow brighter
(Thus say the women that hear us, the men
that see).
We laugh, thongh our way be wending.
Plain to all sight
Deathwards — away from dehght ;
We laugh, though our world be ending
This very night.
We dance on the edge of sorrow ;
We make our song
Of yesterday's roses tied with a knotted thong.
Of joy that shall end to-morrow —
Joy lasts not long.
But grief is enduring, and wrong.
That man from his evil may borrow
Strength, and be strong.
We are harps by strange fingers smitten.
Broken, and soon cast by ;
Cups emptied of wine, and dry.
We are lamps in the doorway litten
And the dawn draws nigh.
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JIZO
Soon is onr stoi7 written
Who dance — and die —
At the sign of the Beckoning Kitten ;
Hail and good-bye.
JIZO
The kindest God that ever came
Out of cahn heaven to troubled earth
Is Jizo, who compassionates
Not only those through temple gates
That pass and pray, but pity gives
To every striving soul that lives.
He is more beautiful than day.
And he is purer than a flame.
He will not turn his eyes away
When Life and Death are met at birth.
He is the God of pilgrims, seen
On every road where pilgrims fare,
Toiling to find some blessed goal
Where peace is shed on every soul.
9>
HMOyGOOt^lC
SONGS OF JAPAN
He counts all weary feet that nm
Towards the slow-declining son.
Or stumble East after some dawn
Long since departed, when the stars
Song morning songs, and fox and fawn
Came out to hear, and were not slain :
Jtzo remembers such a strain.
He is the opener of all bars.
The breaker of the heaviest chain.
He lays his hand on raven hair
And it shall never fade again ;
Though Time holds Iris-flower in scorn,
She in the Under-World shall wear
The bloom and colour of her yonth :
The fair illusion made a truth
By Jizo's touch that lingers there,
When tawny-fiowered chrysanthemum
No more in season due shall come.
To Jizo's arms and bosom run
All children of whatever mood,
Wistfiil or wilful, bad or good :
He shelters them from sun and storm.
Shepherds them all, and hushes all
9"
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A JAPANESE DANCER
To sleep when twilight sbadows fall,
. And, in the refuge of his breast.
Mothers bereft shall find at rest
The wandering children that they mourn :
The smallest and the weakest one
Lies in his lioBom, ufe and warm.
A JAPANESE DANCER
With woven paces and waving handa,
Curtaiea low as the dance demands.
With foreign graces and woven paces, —
Waving sleeves and fluttering fan,
Houth like a rose the south wind knows.
Eyes and brows of curving jet.
Amber pins for a coronet.
On hair dead-black wherein doth show
Blossoms of wild indigo :
The dancing-woman of old Japan
Moves as light as a flower can —
This siren out of Eastern lands
With woven paces and waving hands.
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SONGS OF JAPAN
She is the fairest, fraOest thing
The unchanging Orient can wring
Out of its ageless youth.
She is the naked Truth,
The Andent Evil, and she is
The heart of all antiquest mysteries.
She passes like the wind
O'er water, leaving not a trace behind.
Her sisters are the cheny-flowers that snow
Trees in mid-April. Silken apple-blow
Is stable and strong
Beside her. But she sings a deathless song.
She, grass cut down, a flower that withers, she
That cannot keep but can so wisely kiss —
Her roots are set beside the wisdom-tree.
THE PRAYER OF RUNNING WATER
(a japanesb lbbbnd)
Hkar the Prayer of Running Water,
Kindly son or loving daughter 1
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THE PRAYER OF RUNNING WATER
I who lie in this small space
Never saw atj baby's fiace :
I who lie here all unshriven
May not enter hell or heaven.
Near my grave there runs a spring.
Ivies near it clasp and cling,
Cling and clasp above the water.
As I fain would clasp my daughter.
Near the spring my mourners left
Little cloth of finest weft.
Little cup of crystal fine
Never yet brimmed up with wine.
Fill the cup with water sweet.
On the linen sprinkle it :
When the linen wears in two,
All my pains are struggled through.
When these tokens twain be cloven.
Crystal cup and linen woven,
I who lost, shall find my daughter —
Hear the Prayer of Running Water.
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..Google
TRANSLATIONS
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HOROSCOPES
(prom FRANCIS copi4e)
Before the sibyl with her haunted eyes
Two sisters sat with delicate arms enlaced ;
Watched as she dealt the cards, and, without baste.
Spelt out the rune of their two destinies.
Brown-haired and gold-haired, fresher than the
Poppy and white anemone were they ;
A flower of autunm and a flower of May —
They watched to see their fates from darkness
" Life will be sad for you and yours, heigbo ! '*
The sibyl told the antunm-coloured maid.
" But toill «y looer Unx me?" " Ay," she said,
" W%, Ihen I shall be all too kapj^ so."
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TRANSLATIONS
"With earthly love you never shall be fed,"
The dl^l told the lady white as snow.
" But shall I Utoe at all?" " Ay, even bo,"
" Then hi^ipt/ I thall Hoe and die," she said.
THE CRUCIFIED ULY
(»'R0U CATULLS HENDBS)
I CRUCIFIED a Lily on a rood
In some dark dream or brooding fever mood.
I took a branch and set it in the ground ;
Another branch with ivy twine I bound
For croBspiece to it, and thereon I slew
The fairest Lily that my garden grew.
Hammer and nails a passion flower gave up
From the green calyx of her mystic cup,
Above the Lily buzzed a honey-bee.
And slimy creatures came up stealthily
From the ieaf-sodden earth and creviced walls —
The slug that leaves strange writings where itcrawls.
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THE CRUCIFIED LILY
The fat old toad that chilly poison spews,
Venomous things and blind, of wicked use
And wicked will, came hurrying to the tryst.
And round the dying Lily spat and hissed.
And at the cross's foot, where mosses spread,
Snails drank the sweet tears that the Lily shed.
I took a pointed thorn from out the hedge,
And 'gainst the dying Lily set its edge ;
The flower's head drooped low as if he swooned,
But the white flesh showed neither spot nor
wound.
And, sore afraid, I heard the hovering bee
Bring comfort to the Lily spite of me.
" He that has drawn slow death upon thine head,
Shall bleed for thee as thou hast never bled,
Shall bleed for ever." And in truth I see
Within my heart a thorn that pierces me
With pain unending ; through these many years
I wash my crime away in bloody tears.
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TRANSLATIONS
(from FRAN901S coppte)
I KNOW a church, a place of evil savour ;
— They hanged a priest there long ago, 'tis said —
And none now folds the hands and bows the head
Where once so many faithful souls found favour.
The altar stripped of candles and of cross
Forgets the music once around it swelling :
In the deserted aisles leaves have their dwelling,
Dead leaves that rough winds hunt and tear and
My conscience is just such a shameful shrine
Where, like dead leaves, my dry remorses blow.
Whipped b}' the wind of doubt that scourges me.
Obstinate but not steadfast, I am he
Who cannot shelter his sick sooi below
The overshadowing arms of the Divine.
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THE ALCHEMY OF SADNESS
THE ALCHEMY OF SADNESS
(fHOH CHARLES baudblaire)
One lights the world with his delight.
One drapes all nature in his woe :
The hand which points one to the night.
The other's way to joy doth show.
Thou unknown Hermes, whom I fear
Even while thy guiding hand assists,
Like Midas, thou hast made me here
The saddest of all alchemists.
I change through thee my gold to lead,
And heaven the reek of hell assiunes.
And in a winding-sheet of shadows,
Lo, I have wrapped my dearest dead.
Even in the midst of Eden's meadows
I build my memories into tombs.
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TRANSLATIONS
THE TULIP
(from FRAN90IB coppfc)
Rare and luxurious flower, here you stand
Arrayed for triumph, as you stood of old
When, strange and splendid, in an Infanta's hand
Velasquez set your silver and scarlet and gold.
What is this grudging love that makes of you
Mistress and slave at once, like Hector's wife ?
In this warni treasure-chamber scented through
You sicken for the outside airs of Ufe ;
For your free sisters in the great parks growing.
The stately bowling-greens, the fountains' flowing.
And overshadowing leafage of the plane :
For all the rains sweep and the sun laughs over.
A burgher of Haarlem's your only lover —
Scentless sultana, you have lived in vain.
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THE CRACKED BELL
THE CRACKED BELL
(i<itoH CHARLK§ Baudelaire)
'Tn bittersweet o' wintry nights and dajs
A fire of throbbing logs to loiter near.
And watch while faint old memories appear
Called up by chimes that sing amid the haze.
Some church-bell calls with lusty lungs and clear,
For all its many years unspoiled, imspent.
Like some old soldier watching by his tent.
The password crying out for all to hear.
But my soul's bell is cracked, and when she fain
Would fill with song the cold white evening skies.
Her weak voice rattles and falls dumb again,
Like some poor soldier wounded unto death
Beneath a heap of dead, gasping for breath.
Who, in tfie el!brt, breaks his heart and dies.
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TRANSLATIONS
JACK O' LANTHORN
(from FRANCIS COPP^b)
On stonny nights and under lowenng skies
The peasant, taking home a weary load
Of cares and branches, on the rain-drenched road
Meets Jack o' Lanthom, with his evil eyes.
If he should follow, laying down his sheaf.
The wildfire turns and flies, and in the bushes,
Wherethrough each day the shouldering sea-wind
pushes.
Shines, like a lighted buoy beside a reef.
But if he flies, airaid, and looks behind.
He sees, pursuing, the unholy light
Following his feet, staring with evil eyes.
Even so Desire doth follow me in flight,
And flies me tfhen to follow I've a mind.
When will it fade ? when will the sun arise ?
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THE GHOST
THE GHOST
(froh charlbs bauds laire)
SoPT-EVBD angels from the sky
Shall not tread more light than I
When I seek your bedside white
Through the shadows of the night.
Dark and dear one, this my kiss
Colder than the moonlight is ;
And I clasp you, as a snake
Curls about a leailess stake.
When the moon lifts hvid face
You shall feel my empty place
Chill beside your own, ray dear.
Others on your heart shall play
Easy tunes the bvelong day ;
I, at night, shall rule your fear.
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TRANSLATIONS
(from JU8TB OUVIEh)
Heine, mocking gods and men,
Died nerve by nerve for ten long years.
With Irony's slim willow-rods
He fought Pain and her poisoned spears.
All passed by him, men and gods.
But one day he bowed his head.
Put the rods of willow by ;
" No more laughter now," he said ;
" It is time to die."
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
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JANUARY
MiNS is the Christmas rose,
The palest and the coldest flower earth knows.
On the high hills where heather will be growing
I set the north wind blowing.
And launch upon the plain an avalanche of snows.
I am most strong, most weak.
Vengeance upon the valley I can wreak.
But I can make no crocus break its bud.
I load with crystal chains the mountain flood.
But vainly on the lake for lily-buds I seek,
1 am a hunter bom.
The glowing hearths of short-lived men I scorn ;
I cannot build, but I can break asunder.
Yet I must stand aghast in awful wonder.
Seeing renewed each day the red flower of the
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
JANUARY ROSES
Red roses in the winter sky
At sunset showing.
Where half is gray and half is blue ;
There are no l»irer flowers than you.
And none more sweet and none more dear
On any earthly ro§e-tree growing.
But why
So quick to flower, so quick to die —
Red roses of the winter sky ?
The rose that flowers when June is here.
And storms and snowing
Are past, and winter's out of reach,
A strange word of an ahen speech —
The rose that comes when trees fot^t
The mist that clogs, the frosts that fret.
And that time is towards winter going ;
This rose
Is not more beautifiil than those
That January at sunset shows.
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A VEAR AGO
A YEAR AGO
A VEAR ago a Voice spoke to the Queen,
" Rise up, no more on mortal shoulders lean
The burden of your age.
Here is the end of every palmer's quest.
The certain goal of eveiy {rilgrimage.
Have no more memory of tears and teen :
I bid you enter in your heritage
Of peace, your crowned head stoop beneath this
Where you shall find the lover gone before.
" After all bridal smiles and widowed tesrs.
The river that has flowed for eighty years
Now brings you into safest harbourage,
Where is no rumour of the troubled sea.
No memory of grief that used to be
Your cup-mate and your bed-mate, every day
And every night while your brown hair waxed gray,
And your hart soul grew weary of its clay,
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
" A hand beloved shall set upon your hair
A lighter crown than England's, and more fair.
The daughter of your love yearns for your fitce,
Two sons await you at the trysting-place.
But more than all, there waits and calls to you
The husband and the lover that you knew.
No more the burden of the day endure.
This is the place of ' deadly woundes' cure,'
Where you have come at last,
The travail and the toil of queenship post.
Put off your heavy years, put on yoor youth,
And take those fairest dreams that are all truth ;
They are the garland that the wife shall wear
As she goes'hurrying to her husband's breast,
At last to be at rest.
There where your heart for all these years has
The Voice out of the night spoke no more to the
Queen.
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FEBRUARY
I DO not know wliat roses are,
Hepatica's my only star.
Set deep in winter-bitten grass ;
There is no bird will pause and pass
Along the leafless way I go ;
About my feet the snowdrops mass —
The only flowers as cold as snow.
I may not ever take delight
In sorrels red or woodru^ white ;
The lily's cup shall never be
FUled up with golden dew for me.
The hailstones rest upon my hair
Instead of pearls, and not a tree
Shall tell its fruit that I was fiiir.
The eldest daughter of the year,
1 am not crowned of hope or fear.
Though sharpest thom-prick I would brook
If on the rose I might but look —
I have no rose', I have no thorn.
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
I do but write in the year's book
A word of doubt, then go my way,
A twilit dream denied of mom,
A dawn-cloud blown away by day.
A FEBRUARY DAY
Thk birds were ciying by the lake
That Winter's chain would never break ;
On brittle ice the seagulls slid.
And under leaves and mould was hid
The secret that will take the air
With sudden sweetness everywhere,
Proclaimed by daffodils with might
From trumpet-fiowers of gold and white.
Along the edges of the grass.
And in the ruts where cart-wheels pass
A border of luunelted snow
Lay, that the Spring herself might know
'Twas not yet time for her to keep
Tryst with the blossoniB still asleep,
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A FEBRUARY DAY
To wake the squirrel in his hole,
Fnun chrysalid to call the souL
Tall rods of winter jasmine stood
Naked of leaves, but glad of mood ;
Covered with golden flowere for sign
That Spring shall come, and covrshps shine
Id those brown spaces 'neath the trees
Where only last year's leaves one sees
Heaped sadly as the last wind drave
Them to and fro the lily's grave.
A robin on a holly-bough
Sang as if pairing-time were now
And not a wintry week away :
The brightest colour of the day
Was on his orange-feathered breast.
The silent starlings stepped in quest
Of food, where new-cut sods were turned ;
High overhead a pale sun burned.
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
EARLY SPRING
Pale clouds of gold and murrey
Out of a gray sky lean
To touch the hills of Surrey
In winter-faded green.
Along the river-edges
Brown stand the rattling sedges.
There's no life in the hedges
For men to understand.
Eyes that desire the Spring
Behold, and are not fain
The naked boughs that swing ;
Ah, sad eyes, look again !
'Tia you, not Earth, grows duller ;
For here is Spring's own colour —
Time has no power to lull her
To sleep at his command.
Where last year's leaves are heaping.
Behold, new leaves outrun ;
The hedgerow's twigs are peeping.
Pink-tipped, to greet the sun.
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EARLY SPRING
The fields that have lain fallow
Reiueniber June ; the shallow
Small brook gives tongue ; the nu
Spreads velvet on the sand.
The snail's shell is too narrow.
He seeks a better house ;
The nesthngs of the sparrow
About the fields carouse.
They never saw a dty.
They're shy and pert and pretty ;
To-morrow — more's the pity —
They'll bear the dty's brand.
But now the leaves are moving ;
I>eaf'buds on every bough
Are reaching sunwards, proving
How strong the Spring is now
In every midrib's veining,
In every footstalk straining
Sunwards ; new life is reigning.
For Spring is in the land.
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
MARCH
March stands and knocks upon your door,
Her basket brims with windflowers o'er
And spendthrift gold of daifodillies :
From house to house she begs her bread.
And fain would fortunes tell, 'tis said ;
Her feet are bare, and bare's her bead,
Her hair upon the wind is shed.
As yellow as Lent lilies.
The gipsy mood is hers, the will
That by no hearthstone will bide still
But must go out in the wild weather.
She is as lissome as a tree.
But has no roots to hold her, she
Was never made at home to be.
But rather would rough handling dree.
She and the Wind together.
The first wild swallow's note is hers.
And the first gold seen on the furze.
There's no wise man that knows her dwelling
Or where Time found her, but all know
HMOyGOOt^lC
HERTHA AT SCHOOL
That she is sweet, and swift to go,
.Shy as the west wind, cold as snow.
Yet once, 'tis said man tamed her so^
What ! Kiii arid then be telling ?
HERTHA AT SCHOOL
Hbrtha was at her lessons yesterday
And found them hard even to tears, I think.
She had forgot how to bring green from gray.
To quicken rosy life in clods of clay.
And paint the apple-blossoms white and pink.
How should she, dazed with sleep, remember right
Notes of the blackbird's song when rosetime's here ?
How weave of winter frost the lily's white
And shape the iris-petal, tiU the light
Shone through its delicate purple no less clear
Than through cathedral glass ? How should she
The writing on the hyacinth at all ?
How point the larkspurs in their azure show.
How hang the crown-imperial's blossoms, so
That their sweet tears may gather, but never fall ?
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
Hertha grew sullen. Such a &own of cloud
Grew in the sky and would not lift all day.
The sun was wrapped till sunset in a shroud,
And would not shine although the wind grew loud
Trying to blow his angry mood away.
Ah, Hertha, Hertha ! then the tears began,
You frowned all day and then for ruth you cried
All night, and when the morning lifted wan.
She showed us where your penitent tears outran
An almond'tree abloom in ro^ pride.
ST. PATRICK'S BLESSINGS
Havb you heard of good St Patrick bow once-
he went his way
East and west through Ireland for many a nigbt
and day,
North and south through Ireland i and everywhere
he trod
The world was better for his feet, and greener was
the sod.
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ST. PATRICK'S BLESSINGS
He saw the darit seals swimming in waten of the
west.
He lifted up his hands to heaven and all their
tribes he blessed ;
He saw the wicked butcher-birds that their own
comrades slew.
And none the less he blessed them, for "they
know not what they do."
He saw the green sap rutming in many a forest tree.
He blessed them, and he blessed the ships whose
masts their stems should be ;
He blessed the flower for what she was, the beauty
of an hour,
" Man passes, and he leaves behind less fragrance
than a flower."
The Gods that were, St. Patrick blessed, and all
fair fantasies
That have made men more deep of heart, more
strange to sloth and ease.
He blessed the dreams too beautiful to be made
true on earth.
He blessed the mystery of death, the mystery of
birtb.
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
He came back to his clerics, and in his eyes they
saw
The clear light of God's kindness more lovely than
God's law.
And to his dying day he bore, for all to understand.
The beauty of that time when he went lonely
through the land.
With blessings on the lips of him and blessings in
each hand.
AFTER THE RAIN
The rain is done, but the skies and the streets
remember.
The pavement's dark and sleek with a silky sheen.
There's fire in heaven, the sun is a smouldering
ember.
The wind blows up, and away from its anger lean
Bare branches of trees where tassels of lime have
been —
The rain is done, but the streets and the skies
remember.
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APRIL
The clouds that were gray are rosy ; there's fire
in heaven.
The wind that huddled them shivering to and fro
Herds them no longer, but lets them their own
way go.
By a breath instead of a bitter chiding driven.
Like a rose of a hundred leaves the West's aglow.
The rain is over tuid done ; there is fire in heaven.
APRIL
The world is young that was so old
While Winter held the frozen land
Spellbound beneath his heavy hand.
The world's blood quickens that ran cold;
Life is a fairy tale half-told,
And every field's Tom Tiddler's ground.
Where lads and lassies may be found
Filling their baskets to the brim
With April's silver and May's gold.
Daisies and crazies,' Violets dim
Betray themselves and ferns unfold
' Buttercups.
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
Their rolled-up fronds, and every bough
Runs with new sap ; the heathery howe
Shows gleams of gorse ; on either hand
Lent lilies for Spring's censers stand.
The tired old world again is young.
The sweetest songs have not been sung ;
Though Arthur die and Lancelot fail.
Young knights have seen and seek the Grail.
Though darkened be white Guinevere,
Elaine is pure and Enid dear :
There are new quests to win or lose.
And green woodpaths wherein to choose
What dream is best of all that fly
Like moths beneath an evening sky.
Life has new hopes, new fears, new love.
And a new rainbow gleams above
In sign God will not drown again
The wide world's garden. Not in vain
Falls the shy sunlight through the rain :
The miracle of Spring anew
Makes earth a bride and heaven trne.
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PRIMROSE DAY
PRIMROSE DAY
Makb me a song for Primrose Day.
The sky is blue that was but gray ;
There is some softness in the air,
And here and there and everjfwhere
Are hints and promises of green.
The thom-boughs tipped with beryl lean
Out of'tbe hedges that were bare
Last week, and where the snowdrifU were
Young nettle-leaves unfold, and there
The dandeUon's green rosette
With the unrolling fern is met.
Make me a song for Primrose Day.
Along the streets of London town
A primrose snowstorm settles down
And makes each street an amber way.
Here are tall baskets that o'erbriin
With posies bound for one day's whim.
Here are shrill voices that would drown
All singing, crying their gold wares ;
And many boy, if no one cares
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
How lonesome are the country places
Deserted by these primrose faces.
My song is sad because of these.
My song is light because the breeze
Has brought along a thought of May,
And hght and sad and brief and gay
I make my song of Primrose Day,
EASTER SONG
The world " smells April," and looks May.
'Tis near the time of Easter Day,
And winter-cold indifference,
like an old garment, we put by ;
And keen and glad is every sense.
And hearts are green that were so dry.
The least leaf on the orchard spray
Feels itself kin to all the sky.
I am a leaf, and I renew
To-day my youth. How long 1 grew
Without the sun 1 do not care ;
'Tis near the time of Easter Day.
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MAY
Lent lilies sweeten all the air.
And winter waiting fades away —
Life is well-nigh too sweet to bear.
And spring too dear a word to say.
MAY
Can you not hear us calling.
May, May ?
The fern's unfolding
And the vetch beholding
The day.
Soft dew is falling
Where the rose shall be.
And a whitethroat's calling
To the elder tree,
" Break, buds, break :
Leaves, awake —
Air's clearer, life's dearer. May's nearer
Every day."
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
Old Earth has heard us calling,
" May, May ! "
The lilac-buds give answer,
The aspen is a dancer
Before May's pageant's here.
The whitebeam blossoms peer
Out of their folding leaves.
The swallows from the eaves
Come down tu say,
" We heard her footsteps falling
Far away."
For her the cuckoo's calling.
And the woodpigeons drawling
In their secret bower ;
Air's clearer, life's dearer. May's nearer
Every hour.
PEAE-TREES IN BLOSSOM
Across the waiting lands May sent his word,
A whisper only, but the pear»trees heard.
And clothed their naked boughs in new array
Of blossom green-and-white, awaiting May.
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PEAR-TREES IN BLOSSOM
The pear-trees that were le&fless all throngh March,
And when mad April 'gainst the sky's blue arch
Built up her rainbow house, as brides appear.
Now that the master of all magic's here.
May, the great juggler, takes a barren bough.
Breathes, it is rosy with red hawthorn now ;
Becks with his finger, and the ringdove shows
New colours, and new leaves forebode the rose.
The pear-trees heard him when no others heard.
Or none. believed in the awakening word.
The wind so long was rough, so cold the rain.
They could not think that May would come again.
But these believed ere yet they heard or saw.
And a new beauty &om their faith they draw ;
So that beholding them where white they stand
Holding May's colours in a waking land —
Men say who know not why they are more fair,
" Surely there will be harvest and to spare
In yonder orchards." But one dreamer knows
This is their harvest though no other grows.
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
JUNE
I BRiNO jrou tall day-lilies.
Milkweed and hose-in-bose,
Red buds of amaiyllis.
And lilac gipsy-rose.
I bring you red dead-nettle.
That every hedgerow knows.
Mallow of softest petal.
And hose-in-hose.
My will as the wind's wUl is,
I blow both hot and cold ;
I am as white as lilies.
My idle fingers hold
For long no flowers other
Than roses. Men have said
The white rose is my mother.
My sbe the red.
Misgivings and si
Are mine, and mine shall be
The harvest hope that rises
High in the chestnut tree
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HMOyGOOt^lC
THE SPIRIT OF SUMMER
When in her heavy branches
She feels her blossoms sveet.
And on the warm air launches
Her silken fleet.
I am of all things tender.
And swift to pass away ;
I am the wave of splendour
Drawn from the sea of May.
The nightingale above me
Sings down the night too soon ;
I bare to none that love me
The heart of June.
THE SPIRIT OF SUMMER
My cap is made of thistledown.
Woven of green grasses is my gown.
My veil is made of gossamer.
Butterflies fan me with their wings,
And many shy and timid things,
Covered in feathers or in fur,
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
Seek me for safety when the stonn
Blows up i the h&re forsakes her form
And in my shadow lieth warm.
The squirrel has no thought of fear,
Me perches on my shoulder here
And cracks bis nuts ; and shrew-mice come
To do me suit and service dumb.
Once at Heaven's gate I sat all day
And sang and harped and would not cease —
I was too happy to know peace ;
But now I walk a better way.
Now on the good green eartb I dwell
And have sweet humble tasks to do.
To brim the foxglove's spotted bell
With boney, and to fill with dew
The honeysuckle's drinking-horn.
Creamy and crimson. Every mom
I bid the buttercups arise
And open wide their golden eyes,
And every night I shake down sleep
On labouring lives. 'Tis mine to keep
Earth's little children safe and sound,
And all the woodland holy'jroond.
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THE WHITSUN WOMAN
THE WHITSUN WOMAN
BnowN wallflowers I will bring you.
Wallflowers red and wallflowers rusty,
Waywort from the wayside dusty.
And my meadow-larks shall sing you
Sweeter song than e'er you keatd
Sung by any outland bird.
I am the Whitsun Lady ;
Mine are all glowing flowers.
Coloured by sunny hours.
Mine are the coverts shady
Where the ring-throated culver
Preens his new plumes of silver.
I set the thrush a-singing 1
The whitetbroat's glad to hear me.
Shy rabbits nestle near me.
The rose is of my bringing,
I set the silver blossom
Deep in the elder's bosom.
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HMOyGOOt^lC
CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
My hand the hawthorn flushes ;
I whisper to the rushes.
The secret spell that hushes
Woods when the storm is nigh.
The red ant that man crushes
Fears not my passing by.
Not fairy all, nor quite
Woman, I give delight
And pain ; and all things love me,
Below me and above me.
I count among my lovers.
The wind and the wind-hovers.
MIDSUMMER EVE
'Tis now Midsummer's holy Eve.
I rede you all your fellows leave
And seek the elder shade to spy
On folk of taery passing by.
But lest for feery wrath you grieve,
Pin a green clover to your sleeve.
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MIDSUMMER EVE
Behind the elder branches stoop
As quietly as though void of sest.
And you shall see the feery troop
Ride by — and sKH yourself unguessed —
The milkwhite horses four abreast.
Small men-at-arms in scarlet drest.
And heralds with their flags adroop
You'll see at first, I dare aver.
Pages in suits of gossamer.
And then in frolic company
The faery ladies, three and three.
In gowns of green and miniver ;
Bright-eyed as birds, and sweet to see
As any summer flower may be
To winds that come a-courting her.
The faery Mab wears scarlet shoon,
A red cloak cm her shoulders spread.
The magic colour of the moon
Is Morgan's : on her hair is shed
The sallow's gold. With rose leaves red
Titania is garianded :
But saintly Una crowns her head
With windflowers boimd with silver thread,
White windflowers withering over-soon.
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
But hide you warily and well.
Lest they should touch you with their spell.
And you be never moved again
To song for joy,'to tears for bane,
As once to Ogier it befell.
Having twice seen one faery, he
No other loveliness could see.
But made his bedfellow of Pain,
And Sorrow, riding at his rein.
Imaged his love illusively.
Grief dire as his has often been
The gift of Them who light the green
Dim woodlands with their eyes and hair
And deathless are as they are fair.
And many a maid, more bold than wise,
Who saw them with unlicensed eyes.
With listless foot has deathward gone
Wearing, for sign of hope undone.
Rough garlands of wild rosemaries
For love of sad-eyed Oberon,
Grown tired of his undying Queen.
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JULY,
Silver blossom shining in the breast of golden
elder.
Spires of lupin seeking God, wasteful balls of
guelder ;
All these things the Summer brought Earth, ere
man beheld her
In July.
Lilies knew her when she passed for the lily's
Not a rose would open out if she came not near it,
BeOflowers rang a meny chime, sure that she
would hear it
In Jnly.^
L^rkspui* for her passing foot taller grew and
bluer.
Speedwell's eyes were only gray till they saw and
knew her —
Time is kinder to the world, Love is all the truer
In July.
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
HARVEST SONG
Harvbht, Harvest, hither sway
. Between the acres of com and lye.
Your breath is sweet with the smell of hay,
Your eyes are deep as the August sky.
I am your child and your lover I,
And I will sing you in broken rhyme ;
My right to sing you let none deny.
For I learned love in the harvest-time.
Harvest, Harvest, hither to me.
Tread the thyme till its breath rise sweet
Over the rise of the smooth green lea.
Trodden down by your sunburnt feet.
Loud and strong let all singing be.
Beating upwards as birds' wings beat ;
Swift with the passionate pulse of the sea,
The leap of lightning, the rush of sleet.
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AUGUST
The world is full of honey-bees, the world is fiill
of roses,
And all the world's a garden when the summer to
and fro
Goes trailing over green grass a green gown ; in
her bosom
She wears a knot of heartsease, in her hair's a
briar-blossom.
And after her a light wind blows and Music's
softest closes
Come and go.
The reaper thinks of harvest, and the com thinks
of the reaper.
The poppy fears the shining scythe and fain would
sleep away
Herself to death ; corn-marigolds and cockles are
a-flutter.
And in the bugle-bloom the bee lies drowned in
sweetness utter.
And In the sunburnt elder the honey-scent is
deeper
Than in May.
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
The reaper thinks of harvest, and the children
think of nutting,
And the brunble feels her hips growing red and
growing strong.
The ladybirdsj like rubies, hang upon the leaves
of elder.
And the dew is colder night by night that drops
upon the guelder ;
And in the yellow cornfields the steady scythes
are cutting
All day long.
SEPTEMBER
Touched with the pain of pasting things
The heart of Hertha beats more slow ;
The sunflowers tempt no more the bees.
The scarlet hosts of maple-trees,
— The torches of the year — bum low.
And beau^ grows too deadly fair
For man to bear,
Because she is at point to go.
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OCTOBER
llie maple clothes herself in flame
When first she hears September's name,
— A wonderful and wistful word
Sung by some wise last-snmmer'a bird.
The bees are busy in the phlos.
Their thriil from hearts of hollyhocks
No honey wrings ;
No nightingale at twilight sings.
The swifts bethink them of their wings.
And all the shining afternoon
The air is full of butterflies-
Live flowers that storm the heedless skies.
That fain would quench the hunter's moon.
And set the world's clock back to June :
But all in vain —
Moths go ; mists come ; and irosts remain.
OCTOBER
Who was it said
Earth's beauty waned, the summer being dead ?
I give him back the lie.
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
The tulips may be shent, the rose leaves shed.
But here am I —
I with my opal and my shining mist.
My hair of cloud, my eyes of amethyst.
I am the slchemist who turns to gold
The silver birch's leaves ; 'tis I that change
The faces of the meadows, and make strange
Fields to the beasts that pasture in their grass.
I tell all beauty she must change and pass ;
Grow, wither, and be covered with brown moiUd,
And rise again, exquisite as of old.
Who was it said
Change is not beauty ?
I the changer, I
Who make the rose's grave the birthing-bed
For scarlet turban-lilies ; who have fed
AH mortals with one thought — that life must die —
Who comfort every grief with one fair thought
That joy from pain, love out of loss is wrought ;
Give him the lie.
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HALLOWS E'EN
HALLOWS E'EN
Awake, arise, you dead men all,
Dead women, waken you !
The hunter's moon is in the sky,
Her cnue of froety dew
Night empties ; throw your covers off
Of grave-grass rank and green —
This is the dead men's holiday
And Hallows E'en.
The mother with her buried child
Falls into tender play.
The baby at her shrouded breast
Sucks soft, and sleeps away.
The lover dead twelve years ago
Seeks out his buried dear,
Who put her broken he«rt to rest
But yesteiyear.
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
' Behold, wof hoe, n^ hair is black.
Your bonny hair is ivhite :
How come my darling's eyes to dim ? '
" With weeping many a nigbt.
With sewing many a weary day
Through years that knew not you ;
But now I've done with rosemary
And done with me.
" My garland of diy roseniary
Hangs where I used to pray ;
My garden with its tansy-flowers
Runs wild for many a day.
The box-plants that I used to tend
The passing children puU,
The green leaves strew the way they go,
Slowfoot, to school.
" And I have done with lessons now.
Have said my last task through.
And I may rest at last, sweetheart.
As once I played, with you."
He kisses her, he blesses her.
He strokes the taded hair ;
She never was so dear to him
When she was feir.
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NOVEMBER
Brother and sister parted Long
By bitter words and blind,
Foi^et the years of severed ways
And old love have in mind.
The beggar that of hunger died,
The girl that died of shame,
Are playing with dead children here
Some childish game.
Husband and wife forget the wrong
That kept their souls apart ;
Hand ties in hand as tenderly
As heart beats upon heart.
This is the day for buried love
To see as it is seen :
This is the dead men's holiday,
All-Hallows E'en.
NOVEMBER
Wherkin will she find pleasure to recaU
How red the roses were in middle Jane,
How evening primrose from her brittle root
Sucked strength to lift her honeyed flowers erect ?
147
)Ot^[c
CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
Bare are the boughs October's eyes saw decked
With such rich colours when red-ripe to fall
Was every leaf; the gardens empty all.
The apple-trees are stripped of their last fruit.
Her song goes faintly to a mourning tune.
There is no splendour in her afternoon.
All thrusheB, save the missel-cock, are mute,
And veiled with heavy vapour is her moon.
She has no memory of the harvest-fields.
For she was bom when husbandmen forgot
The sheaves for thinking of the seed they sow ;
The only birds she knows
Are those that after vanished summer go.
And the red sunset is her only rose.
Argestes is her minstrel, and he sings
A song of passing things ;
And all her soul to heavy sorrow yields.
Forgetful of her crown and of her wings
That on these chilly days has fallen her lot
Walking knee-deep among dead forest-leaves.
For roses that she has not seen she grieves.
For unknown blue eyes of forget-me-not,
And unfamiliar tendrils of the vine.
148
HMOyGOOt^lC
NOVEMBER
" For all these things that never can be thine
Were June's and August's. Vintagers remember
How even grave September
Wreathed her tritfa grapes, and danced as maidens
do."
The North-East tells her as away he goes —
The roughest wind that blows —
To shake the empty nests beneath the eaves.
The walks with twigs to strew.
The lily is a legend to her ears.
Heard half with scomfol laughter, half with tears ;
She cannot think that where those brown threads
hang
Hand over hand the deep-leaved branches sprang,
And Dijon decked with golden globes the waU.
Now wretchedly the naked tendrils scrawl
" Mene, Upharsin," where they used to write
A message of deUght.
November veils in mist her weary head,
" Would Crod my moon were dark,and I were dead."
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CHILDEEN OF THE YEAE
AT THE END OF NOVEMBER
At the end of November I heard the faeries cry —
The place it was a green rath, and I was passing l^
With a creel Aill of white fish, and all alone was I.
There was a new moon rising in a low sky and
And through the foggy twilight 1 heard the faeries
" Rise and 9onie away.
New-bom child and newly-married bride,
Corae from cradle, or from huBband's side —
Come, come away,"
At the end of November I took her to my own.
My Maureen of the gray eyes, — and now I sit
I wake my lone and sleep my lone, and Maureen
never knows
The love is grown into a thorn that she set for a
rose,
For there's no sound of crying in the green way
she goes,
ISO
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AT THE END OF NOVEMBER
Since she heard them uty,
" Time shall change yon, newly-married bride,
Thin your hair, lay waste your bosom's pride.
Come, come away."
At the end of November they took Maureen away.
Out of my anus they stole her betwixt the night
and day;
And evening after evening I haunt the rath to see
If I can win again the wife the faeries stole from
And on the thieves that made me poor my bitter
curse I lay
That e'er I heard them Bay
Amid their idle dancing along the water-side,
The spell that draws uncfaristened child and
newly-married bride
To rise and go away.
HMOyGOOt^lC
CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
DECEMBER
I BRING the fogs to town,
And silence evei^ other bird
Tliat Robin's plain-song may be heard.
White pearls of frost are in my crown
And rubies red as wintiy eves.
My Inreast-knot is of ivy-leaves.
And gray as mist's my traiUng gown.
I quench on dale and down
The last wild orange marigold,
I turn the lily's last leaf brown.
And drive the reedbirds &om the sedge.
And the last berries in the hedge
I take to me forthwith to set
In midmost of my carcanet.
That spite of rubies is so cold.
The year is worn and old.
And dim the dftocing visions are
That led him on from stAr to star.
From March to May, from May to June,
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TWELFTH NIGHT
Till now his moon's a waning moon.
That up the heavens climbs not far.
The Archer is my sign ; his bow
Is bent, the arrow's on the string
That the Old Year's release shall bring.
But when it flies I shall not know.
TWELFTH NIGHT
Twelfth Night is here again. Her glory's over,
No more a Queen's her mate, a King her lover.
For pairing maids and boys she hath no care,
The crown of misrule shines not on her hair ;
But over mud-splashed ways she paces slow,
Where late Unreason's abbot used to fare.
With pomp and pride and goodly company —
Mummers a many, masquers gay to see.
Each garlanded with pearly mistletoe.
Old customs pass, as she does. Ere they go
Salute them each one softly, for they bear
With them more kindness than their glances show,
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CHILDREN OF THE YEAR
As with averted eyes they pass and pass
Like shadows showing in a magic glass.
The root of custom may be beauty's root.
Though she and beauty bear a different fruit ;
The root of custom may be foithfiUness
Or love itself, though in s masquer's dress.
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MUIRGEIS
AN IWSH PLAY
..Google
DRAMATIS PERSONS
ffGNlBVE .
Mavrva
Hugh Dall
DttSS OF THE SaNDHILI^
CnOHAN
The Bride.
The Bridegroom, a pro-
vincial King.
The Bride's Father, Aire
or Chief of Glenmore.
The Bride's Forter-wsUr.
A Blind Harper.
A Faerj King.
AtteudftDt to Diarmuid.
Chorus of Peasante, Wedding Guests, and
Sea-feeriee.
This play will be shortly produced as the libretto of
an Irish opera ; the music thereof, on the Irish scale,
is written by O'Brien Butler, Esq.
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ScBNB I. — A Sba-Shorb hepresentino Muib-
rrash's Strand on thb Coast of Kerry
Enter some peasemtt, an old vum, an old mmian, a
girl, and Huoh Dall, a blind harper.
Old Woman
Let me rest here a little, and take breath,
}Ay feet ate weary of the silver sands.
That once I frolicked over like a wave.
GiBl.
Why, mother, were you ever young at all ?
Old Man
Ay, she was young, and twice as fair as you.
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Girl
You would not say so if youi" eyes were young.
Old Man
Young lips can lie, though.
Old Woman
Ay, Shaun, but she's right.
We are grown old, indeed. Our eyes are dim —
We cannot see the sun that shines on her.
Our backs are to the sun, our shadows go
Ahead of us, and all our hills are climbed.
Old Man
You wept your eyes dim over dying babes
When famine fell upon us, like a wolf
Spumed by the pack, and monstrous as a Dhoul.
My back is bowed with ploughing stubborn fields ;
Yet men were then less hard of heart than she.
Old Woman
What have green leaves in oonmnon with dead
The young folk look ahead into the spring.
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MUIRGEIS
Majbe we flouted the gray heads ourselves ;
And laughed hecause the old eyes could not see
More than the graves out on Church Island there.
Young hearts are hard hearts everywhere, ayick !
Girl
You talk of dim eyes with a bhnd man here ?
Hugh Dall
This blind man sees a world shut out &om you.
Gdu.
A world worth 'seeing?
HuoH Dall
Ay, so fair a world.
That no man who has eyes shall pity me.
Hugh Dall (Solo)
Rose of the world, she has chosen me
Out of the world fiill of men that see —
She &lls my dark with a core of Ught
When the neighbours think I am steeped in night.
Rose of the world, they have words galore,
(For wide's the swing of my mother's door),
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MUIRGEIS
But their voice blows by me like blowing rain,
For they know not joy if they know not pain.
Rose of the world, the grief you give
Is worth all joys that a man may outlive.
Is worth all prayers that the colleens say
On the night that darkens the wedding-day.
Rose of the worldj they may talk their fill.
But dreams are good and my life stands still.
While their lives' red ashes the gossips blow,
And I dream of your beauty, Creevin cno !
Girl
Wliat it this Beauty that your darkness sees >
HuQH Dau.
I cannot tell you now. I'm out of tune,
Heartstrings and harpstrings both, and all the air
Is changed to me as if a storm were near.
Girl
There is no look of storm in all the sky.
Hugh Dall
The storm is in men's hearts then, and 'tis near.
[Lijii his head, luUning.
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HMOyGOOt^lC I
J
MUIRGEIS
I see a face now, and I hear a step.
As soft as Hatred, going on its way
Snow-footed.
Girl
Here is do one but ourselves.
Huou Dall
I tell you Hatred comes, and she is here.
[Enter Maurya.
Maurya
Do you wait here to see the bride pass by ?
You are too early, she is still at prayer
Yonder in Lober chapel on the hilL
Old Woman
How looks she ?
MAtntYA
With the April &ce of brides.
Girl
Oh, I would be all June in face and heart
If I could give my Iiand to such a mate
As Muirgeis weds to-day, a King of men.
Meet for s rose of women.
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MUIRGEIS
Old Man
She has &te
Under her feet, and wears upon her breast
Fortune for wedding-favour.
GiRt (Umghing)
By your leave,
"Fis Diarmuid's heart she wears for &voar there.
Mavrya
What do you know of hearts P
Girl
Much more than you.
Whose heart is colder than the Druid stones
When the west wind blows over Ballybrack,
And brings the ntin up with it
Maurya
Hold your peace !
Yon talk with a child's tongue.
Girl
You with a snake's.
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HMOyGOOt^lC
Maurya
I have Dot stung you for your foolishness.
Girl
You would' have no one wiser than yourself.
Maurya
1 do not see a wiser, seeing you.
Girl
Ay, there is some bewitchment on your eyes,
Or else they would have seen the light ashine
In Diarmuid's face when Muirgeis looked at him.
You love not love-looks ! Then God mend your
sight
Old Man
You women talk with tongues like girdle-knives.
What is this wedding that you speak of it
As though it were a war ? Let us go hence,
[Taking HuoH Dall's am.
And leave these wrangling women to their strife.
What ails you, man ?
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MUIRGEIS
HuoH Dall
N«y, but what ails 1117 dreams ?
\Feeh kit teay U> Maurya, ai^ lays his hand
Is it not ill enough that I am bhnd.
Having once seen the day, how fair it is ?
Maurya
Loose me and let me go. [Draws am^ front him.
HuQH Dall
Let go my dreams.
- HuoH Dall and Maurya (Dud)
HuoH Dall
My dreams are dark.
Is it not ill enoogh that I am blind,
And know not Love from Hatred till she speaks.
And cannot see the rose on bridal cheeks.
Nor how the brown sail fills before the wind.
Nor how the hill-fern kindles at a spark ?
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HUIRGBIS
Haurva
Listen snd hark !
I have no power of darkness on yoar eyes.
And over these your dreams I have no power.
I made no midnight of your morning hour.
Quenched not your son, and cannot bid it rise.
It is not for my sake your dreams are dark.
Hugh Dall
My dreams are dark :
Your shadow over all their lights is thrown ;
They wear a twilight that is not their own.
I hear the bat cry, silent is the lark.
My dreams are dark.
Maurva
Are your dreams dark ?
'Tis not my shadow on their brightness thrown.
My shadow dusks no dream except my own ;
'Tis your own hand that steers your dreamer's
Ixirque
Into the dark.
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MUIBGEIS
HUQH Dall
I can hear anger growing in your heart —
A barren blossom with a blood-red root
Girl
A flower that grows so fast must be a weed.
Hugh Dall
Pluck it and trample on it, weed or flower —
Lest it should overtop all wholesome growths.
And drop its blighting dews upon their heads.
Maury A
Let but its renom kill me first, and then
Do what you will with it — with it and me.
Maurya {Solo)
My mother heard a curlew ciy,
And followed it across Glenmore,
And underneath a moonless sky
A changeling child my mother bore.
Bom of the faery blood am I,
A bitter doom I dree ;
Earth is not mine until I die,
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MUIRGEIS
And "nr-na-n'Og is not for me.
My mother heard a cnrlew cry,
And heard it to her daughter's woe ;
Bom of the foery blood am I,
Yet far away from Tir-na-n'Og.
I hear winds sing a faery song.
When half this world's asleep ;
In two worlds I have suffered wrong,
I cannot pray, I cannot weep.
Hugh Dall
Yon do not lack for fiiends among the Shee,
For all your bitter tongue.
Maurya
How do you know ?
For yon at least, Hugh Dall, are not my friend.
Girl
M&urya does not know what friendship means.
She gave no love to Muirgeis, though she drank
One mother's milk with her. She stood apart
From all our games — she knew not how to play ;
She could not even quarrel like a child.
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KMOyGOOt^lC
Maurva
I had not thooght that wisdom was a fault.
Girl
You are all faults because you are so wise.
Maurva
Pass out and leave me to the company
Of mine own faults. I have no need of yours
To make my soul more humble than it is.
Old Woman
Speak her more gently.
Foolish folk or wise
You fear me then — and fear shall be my crov
And cloak against the sorrows of the world.
Girl
She is not homan. Let us go our way
And leave her to her kingdom made of fear.
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HuoH Dall
Turn my face from her lest I take her path.
The road she goeB is over-dark for me.
[Petuanlt pam oat, leaning Maurya alone.
Mauhva
Their foolishness goes with them, praise the Gods.
\Wedding guestt cms the stage. WUh Ihem
come MuiROKia and Diaruuid. Mum-
QBis calU Mauhya to her.
MUIROEIS
Why did you turn your face from me, Maurya,
When all my other kinsfolk greeted me ?
Madrya
I am no kinswoman of yours, Muii^eia —
And did I kiss 1 should but kiss your hand.
If you and I were comrades yesterday.
You wear a ring to-day that makes you queen.
And me the chief among your waiting-maids.
MuiRQKIS
Do I not hold you by a dearer bond,
O foster sister ?
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Haurya
Marriage must untie
All other bonds to make its own knots fast.
What would you have of me ?
MuiRGEIS
Fresh Sowers to make
A new wreath for my hair. This garland's dead.
The chapel torches killed it
Maurya
Had you worn
Pearls for your garland it had never blenched
For heat or cold, Muirgeis.
MVIRQEIS
Bat pearls mean tean.
Mauhya
And every woman bom is boui to weep
Unless she pass the gates of Tir-na-n'Og
While she is young and fair.
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HDlRQEia [To DuUltJID.
1 sluU grow old —
I shall grow old and sleep be^de the fire,
Though now the blood Is dancing through mjr veins.
DlARUUID
If you grow old 1 shall not know it, sweet.
You have the very May-breath on your lips.
And you will keep the May-dew in your heart.
Whatever raven croaks of change and age.
Maurya
May is immortal but in Tir-na-n'Og.
Who turned your thoughts to-day to Faerylaad,<
Or bade you harp always on that one string ?
Maurya
Was I not called a raven by my king i
And surely he who chose a dove tor mate
Knows that the loyalest raven can Irat croak.
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DlARHUtD
Your king knows naught of ravens now save this —
That one is throated like the nightingale.
Mauiya, I bid you sing — 1 care not what.
But let Muti^eis sing too that I may hear
The sunbeams threading through the liquid rain.
Maurva (Solo)
O, I would go to Faeryland
And wear the faery red ;
And wear a gold ring on my hand,
A gold crown on my head —
Oro!
A gold crown on my head.
MuiBQEiB AND Maurya (Duet)
MuiHOEIS
Would you be always glad and gay
And never sigh to see
The old green spring, the AjHil day.
The new leaves on the tree —
Oro!
The new leaves on the tree ?
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HUIBGEIS
Maurya
I would not walk on meadow grass
If gold floors I could tread.
I Vould not dwell where all things pasi
And lore on loss is fed ;
Ocbone!
And love on loss is fed.
MuiRQ&ia
There is no sweeter time than spring,
With hofies of flowers to be ;
More dear I hold the blossoming
Than fruit upon the tree :
Orol
Than fruit upon the tree.
Madrya
I would not miss the fickle spring.
And sad I would not be
To see new roses blossoming
'Neath light that warmed not me,
Oro!
'Neath hght that warmed not me.
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UUtROEIS
MuiROEIS
I would not go to Tir-na-n'Og,
I would grow old with you,
[Turmng to Diahmcid.
And share all joys that yon msy know.
And all the soitows too ;
Ochone!
And all the sorrows too.
Mavrya
I would not live on middle earth ;
If 1 could ever be
One bubble of the faeiy mirth,
A wave upon the sea ;
Ochone —
A wave upon the sea.
[Exetmt.
Maurya, left ahntf goet down to the edge of the tea.
Maurya (Soh)
Thou who wast and art a part
Of each bird's ciying.
Give me comfort for the sorrow of my heart,
"nion who art rocks and weeds and foam-bells flying.
174
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MUIRGEIS
My heart is the nether rock,
My soul has no room for breath ;
Thy silence prithee unlock,
Pronounce the word that is death.
Donn of the Sea-Vats,
Donn of the Sandhills !
[Donn op the Sandhills i
carries a green branch in his hand. With
him are sea-faeriet.
Donn
Why do you call on me, O bitter woman ?
Because you rule the sea, and have the strength
1 need, without the goodness that I fear.
Donn and Maurya (Duel)
Donn
I give no gifts to earth. 1 sell
Sea-flowers and all strange lives that dwell
In ooze, and weed, and fluted shell,
What will yoa buy ?
Will you have fragile flowers of spray
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HUIRGEIS
A moment white, then blown away^
Or scA-fires gleuning in the bay
When storm is brooding in the slgr;
A merchant of sea-ware am 1 —
What will yon bny ?
Maurya
I ask no gift. I would buy sleep
As dreamless as the sea is deep ;
Love's eyes have seen and passed me by.
And 1 would die.
The woman loves me that I hate.
The man that I would take for mate
Loves her, alas, and loves not me.
My life is broken like a tree
Whereon the lightning fell of late.
SeU deatii to me.
DONN
Bed Mauiya, you are lar too &ir to die.
Why not buy vengeance ?
Madrva
Sell me vengeance then.
Give me the woman here into my hand
To slay, give me the man to be my love.
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DONN
This woman loves your lover ?
Maurya
Even so.
But not for this I hate her — not for this.
I hate her for the love he gives to her,
That were to me as bread to one who starves.
My mouth is fiill of curses.
DONN
Yet she thrives !
Maurya
Curses like these of mine will find her yet
DoNN
She must be very fair to earn such hate.
Maurya {Solo)
The night is in the black cloud of her hair,
And near her face a hly is less fair :
The flower of her face is white and red
As damask rose leaves upon ivory laid.
You have loved many women, Bonn, and all
Have died away like flowers as bride lets &11,
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MUIRGEIS
When o'er love's threshold she is softly drawn.
Have djed away like tapers in the dawn.
You have forgotten them and they forget
You loved them. They and yesterday have met,
To-day is outs — Muirgeis is of to-day ;
A rose of women for your hand to hreak
Off from her tree and to your heart to take.
Pluck her before she also fiides away.
DoNN
And if I gathered her, this thorny rose
That with her sweetness pricks you to the heart ?
You have not paid me, it is Muii^eis pays.
Maurva
She is the payment only ; but a power
Stronger than you are, Donn, defends her now !
Above the lintel in her father's hall
A branch of rowan hangs, and guards the house
Better than locks and bolts and bars of steel.
To-night the rose that Diarmuid loves is still
A flower worth the garden of a god.
TofnoTTWe — ah, to-morrow, she will be
A rose no longer ; she will be a wife !
There is one hand alone of all the throng
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MUIRGEIS
Of guests and serv&nts wlilch can let yoa in
To pluck this rose from off the parent stem ;
The hand that dares to take the sacred bough
And cast it in the flames — this hand of mine.
DoNN
That hand is worth; to lift up a bough
The rowan cannot live with. Hazels grow
By every rath and every fiiery well
My palace in the Country of the Yonng
Is set about with hazels, and its roof
Wattled with hazel-boughs. This branch I bear
Is from my doorway. Take it in yoor hand.
\Givet her the bnmck.
Let the bride touch it, but with finger-tips —
And she is mine, and she must come to me
Out of her bridegroom's arms.
Maurya
Take her to you—
And by all Gods that have been and shall be,
llie emptiness she leaves shall be my heaven.
Whence never I will cry to God or man.
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Take heed and keep your oath lest you should
die.
ScENK II. — O'Gnikve's Hall
Guettt ritmg from the iabUi, Muikqkis and Dur-
MuiD m the high geais. Maurya tilt on a bench
mith a green branch in her lap from winch the is
ttripping the Uavet. As the tcene proceedt the
makes the kaoet into a niretUh.
An Old Guut
A Ust cup to the bride before we rise.
Your name would turn a ditch's dregs to wine.
O'Gnibvb
I drink to you, Muirgeis, child of my heart !
Chorus of Gukbts
Though for drink we had but the dull ditchwater,
Your name would change it to honeymead.
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MUIBGEIS
If you but passed over a field of slaughter
The wounds of the vaoqaished would cease to
bleed.
The fallen banners would see you and hear you,
And rise up again from the dust where they lay :
The godless thieves of the dead would revere yon.
And death would behold you and turn away.
MumoEis
I thank you with my heart A health to you !
[DrinJu.
DiARHUiD (takes the cup fjvm her)
I drink to all that love you, and that health
Is to all folk that look you in the face. [Drinh.
Maurva
Old haggard women that were beautiful — }
Will they look in her face, and never curse
The blossom of her beauty, seeing there
What they have been and shall not be again ?
Crohan (crossing himself )
Why, she is safe from any evil eye !
iSi
i,Mo>Goot^[e
Maurya
Kings are not strong enough to blind men's eyes.
Or tie the tongues of v
Crohan
Even the blind
MuBt see the white soul shining through her faec
And slander hath no traigue to call day ni^t.
Maurya (meering)
Oh ay, Muirgeis is safe against all ill —
Since sight of her must turn all ill to good.
"Us plain the snow she treads on must jrield
When ears less favoured hear the thunder peal.
The clouds, to her, wilt seem to kiss like babes ;
The lightnings, that we wince at, will for her
Be honey moonlight ; hail, that lashes me.
Will brush her cheeks like petals of a rose
Thrown by her lover.
HooH Dall
Ay, and all your sneers
Cannot but drop as harmless as dead wasps
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\
MUIRGEIS
Whom the blithe air rejects for aU their wings.
Nothing shall hurt her. She shall put away
Anger as rowan witchcraft.
[Maurya looki totvarda the door, and lau^.
Crohan
Whence this mirth i
Mauhya
I laughed without a reason, as I sneered :
Peace now and let me weave my garland, Hugh.
Hugh Dall
What leaves are these you weave into y<Hir wreath ?
Maurya
Leaves virginally green, fit for a bride ;
Blight has not smutched them or a hot sou seared.
Be sure they are not willow leaves, or thorn.
Sallow, or cyivess, or the boding yew,
Hugh Dall
Give me the wreath between my hands to feel.
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Maurya
Nay, use your ears and not your fingers, Hugh !
Hark how the king's love flames kbout the queen
As though the heart of Angus beat in him.
[Fierce^.
What would I give to light your eyes again.
That you might see, Hugh, how he looks on her.
And pray to Death to take both sight and life
Because there was no blindness blind enough !
HuoH Dall
You are in thicker darkness than I am.
I strike not out on every side like you.
Eager to dig wounds deeper than your own.
I am too wise to glut the beast in me.
Maurya
Who said that I was wounded ?
Hush Dall
I who know
The voices of the wounded from the whole —
Because I cannot see the eyes that dare
Discovery with laughter or with frowns.
[Rites and crotta stage.
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MUIRGEIS
DlARHUID (to MUIROKIS)
I need no provinces to make me rich
With tribute of gray eagles, com, and kine,
That have you for my queen, my shining one.
Maurya (tpeanlt/, atide)
I sicken of this tune. Knows he no more i
Crohan {Um^ang)
■. Why, every lover sings to such a tune.
DlABMUID
I trow the Gods are envious of the rose
That I have plucked to-day.
MUIRBBIS
Ah, hush, my king !
Such praise is ill. I were not &ir in heaven.
Maurva (iBuamnj)
Fair as a moonflower when the moon is dark.
The Gods that gave the joy whereby is Death
Alone made possible to bear, will not
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Grudge me the rose that strilces into my life-
Yea, even to the grave and makes it Eweet t
Alas, my lord, 'tis pity that a rose
Sees but one summer out, and does not know
How like a rose the winter sunset is t
Then yoa shall be a star and not a rose,
And shine upon my Dun until all lights
Be one with utter darkness, and I sleep.
DiARHUiD (Solo)
The heart that's set upon a rose
Must break when summer goes ;
All flowers must as pilgrims &re
When winter's trumpet blows.
September sees the rose-tree bare.
And no October knows
What roses are, what roses were —
My love is not a rose 1
My love shall be a splendid star
That shines apart, afor.
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MUIRGEIS
Time cannot dim her lovely light.
Nor winds on it make war ;
The wide-eyed dayj the dreamfiil night
Behold no envy mar
One roae of light that bums up blight
As fuel for a star.
Maurya
Yet stars have fallen.
DlARMUID
This star shaU not fall.
Maurya
Speak lower, for the old Gods are not dead,
And they might find it in their hearts to quench
This star you boast of, king.
MuiRoEis (angry)
Did Diarmoid boast?
And shall ray waiting-maid rebuke the king I
Mauhya
And is the queen made angry and a&^d
Because a waiting-maid speaks idle words i
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HUIBGEIS
Find pardon for me in your tu^pmesB.
[Z*o MuiRons.
And I will be as dumb as Hugh is blind.
Though atar dash into star and be consumed.
DlARMUID
The jealous dArkness mocks the foiling star
That is not less a star the while it falls.
My star is rising now in your gray eyes.
HuiROEIS
Hush ! of your praises I am half afraid,
Diarmuid, belovM, love me not too well.
I am so happy that I fear all things.
Diarmuid
/ am so happy that I cannot fear
lliough the world quaked beneath my dancing feet
Maurva
Alas, my lord, speak lower, kings have seen
Their glory pass like smoke upon the wind.
Queens have outlived their beauty and have felt
It was a fable when they heard it sung.
Only the dead are conquerors of change.
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MUIRGEIS
DiARHUID
You talk of death to one whose thoughts are ftiU
Of love and life and beauty. Sing instead
A song worth hearing, tightened with her name,
As a gmy web is shuttled through with gold.
When woven for the mantle of a queen.
HutftQEIS
I fear her song will take no gold from me.
DiAHHuiD (taug^ag)
Why, this is ahoost treason.
DURHUID (Soh)
The very spirit of all sadness seems
To look with brighter eyes beholding you.
And age forgets its weariness of limb.
And those long years it has outlived its dreams
And watched its beacon fires grow faint and dim.
It sees its fairest dream take shape anew.
Sotfow and shame trodden beneath your feet
Are sweet as thyme, and evil dies away
Confronting you, a lamp put out by day.
None may be hopeless that have seen you, sweet,
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MUIRGEIS
For all thoughts muat be pure, all dreams come
true.
And all men must grow good that neighbour you.
DiARXUiD {ipeakt)
Now, Mauiya, bring your voice to crown my song
With words more sweet but not mote true than
Maurya {Solo)
I heard white bells in a belfry ring
Where a foxglove flowered in the end of spring ;
She WAS white as foam on the lashing sea,
Though a weedy ditch for her home had she.
Nightshade and nettle beside her grew.
But the snowy grace of her no one knew.
Her bells would ring if the wind but stirred.
And no one heard.
The nightshade ceased not to distil
Poison from dew, but would not kill
The nettle braving frosts and showers,
The bindweed strangKng frailer flowers.
None saw her beauty in daylight.
Or dreamed and pined for it at night —
She flowered, she died, her name grew strange.
They did not change.
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MUIRGEIS
DiARMUiD (kitting MuiRQBis's hatid)
I am too near the flower I love to praise
Her or her singer, though the song rang sweet
As whit«throat calling whitethroat through the
dusk.
Maurva
I gang not only of the foxglove, king.
MuoH Dall (atide)
The nettle keeps her sting, I'll swear to that
Maubya
The nightshade wears the purple of a queen
And ripens without fear her grapes of death.
The foxglove is the blossom of a day.
Hugh Dall
In God's name, peace I lliat foul things prosper
weU
Were reason but to hate them with a hate
Too fierce for song, a hate to nerve the hand
To pluck them root and flower irom out the earth.
Whose motherhood divine their hves disgrace.
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MUIRGEIS
Maurya
'Tis well, methinks, jou did not name your God,
Or out of love for gods still throned in heaven
My tongue had proved Him Impotent
Crohan
Hugh Dall
You cumot tempt my God to throw one stone.
Though all the fools in Ireland missed the sky
With stones aimed heAvenwarda ; but God is God,
And in His silence all your gods have died
Wordless and miserable, willing to die.
MuoH Dall and Maurta (Duet)
Maurya
The Gods are safe in Tir-na-n'Og,
Though the world's winds blow hot and cold ;
But we who stand outside, we grow
Old.
The Gods are shaken from their mirth
By nothing that is bom or dies.
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i,Mo>Goot^[e
Hugh Dall
Moles heap new hills upon the earth.
New stars write change upmi the skies.
Men build too high or build too low —
Earth takes her toll of blood and gold.
The Gods heed nothing — they, too, grow
Old.
O'Gnibvk
Let the Gods be. To-day it matters not
Whether they live or die ; to-day is ours.
They have to-morrow — ay, and yesterday —
The bitter yesterday that stole their youth.
Upon the grave of that which they have lost
We stand, the emperors of one fair day :
Let us not spoil it with the thought of them.
A dance, you laggards i
HuOH Dall (mvttenng)
Fool!
DiARHUlD AND MuiBaEIS
Crohan
Maurya, will you dance with me to-night .*
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MUIRGEIS
Maurva (thaimg her head)
To-night I cannot / shall dance to-morrow.
[PeaeaiUt dance a Cor or reel.
HuQH Dall
Is the dance done so soon ?
Maurya
Whjj every step
They took was planted on your heart and mine ;
But woe to them who dance on coffins, Hugh.
Hugh Dall
'Tis ours who do not dance. My master speaks.
And I must sing who am so out of tune.
O'Gnkvb
Rise up, Hngh Dall, and make a song for us
Shall lift the name of Muirgeis to the skies ;
There let it shine as shines the name of Fand
Who strove with Eimer in those twiht days
When women of two worlds fought for one man.
MuinoEU
Ah, the unlucky name !
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DURHUID
Whose name, asthore ?
MuiROEU
My iather spoke of the sea-woman, Fand,
Who drove CuchulUn mad and made green fruit
^pen when she drew near it, and cold dew
Turn fire because she trod it underfoot
DiARHUID {lau^itg)
And has that name put dread into your heart,
my pale lady ? Fear no omens more.
If fiieiies came and sang beside my bed.
And drew their gleaming hair across my lids.
In that gray hour that oomes before the dawn.
When you were sleeping softly at my side,
1 should not hear them and I should not see.
You are more strong than Maive, more fair than
Fand. [Kittet her.
Macbya
Sing, Hugh, and better what the king has sung
If you are bold enough and blind enough.
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HuoH Dau, (Soh)
The rose to yoa gives place,
What roses ever were
Bom, but to make your face
More fair, Muirgeis ?
The quicken looked on you.
And red with berries grew ;
Your breath sent summer through
The air, Muirgeis.
O rose of white and red,
Soft be the grass you tread,
The scent of roses dead
Clings close to you.
O woman kind and fair,
' Love crowns your shadowy hair.
The touch of time will spare
This crown, Muirgeis.
MuiRoiis
Why shoidd you sing of roses th
dead?
To-day my world is in full flower for n
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MUIRGEIS
Hugh Dall
Out of mj darkness with prophetic eyes
I looked ahead and saw the autumn come.
While you saw only youth, and love, and spring.
DlARIlIUID
Your eyes are clouded, love. What ails my wife ?
If I was clouded, dearest, it was but
By a light cloud grown out of last night's dream.
The fear unspoken is the coldest fear.
Tell us your dream, Muirgeis, and be at peace.
MuiROEis {Solo)
I heard a wild bird crying, a seagull of the sea ;
And the heart out of my bosom was wiled away
My fingers tired of rock and reel, toy feet tired of
the pl«n,
I turned my back on harvest and I prayed for
spring again.
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MUIRGEIS
I go up to the momitain, and I go down to the
sea,
I am not sad, I am not glad, for there's do heart
in me.
I go for ever seeking a wandering voice, and all
1 find is the sea lapping against the gray sea-wall.
O'Gnievk
Well, daughter, there's no mischief in this dream.
My cheeks were wet when I awoke, and yet
My dream was AiU of music.
Like your life.
You move and breathe to music, O ray sweet.
As unto perfume moves and breathes a rose.
Maurya (rititig)
The wreath is ready.
Hugh Dall (holding oui hit katid)
Give it first to me.
i,Mo>Goot^[e
Maurya
What will a blind man's fingers make of leaves ?
Hugh Dau.
My fingers are ray eyes, and all of me
Feels something strange and evil in the air.
Is not the hall grown dark, the torches dim ?
The air tastes salt and cold upon my lips.
As if it blew upon me from the sea.
Maurya
You are as full of bodings as a crone
Bred in the haunted glen of Ballybrack.
Hugh Dau, (Jeeiing the completed wreath)
These are not rowan leaves.
Bring me the wreath,
Hugh Dall
Here is some mischief. Throw the garland down,
My queen, lest there be set upon your head
A crown of sorrow, not a bridal crown.
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MUIRGEtS
MuiBOEIS
[At Maurya puU the turealh on her head.
Should I wear withered flowers ?
HuoH Dall
Alas, Toj queen.
Thrust it irom you, for hate has woven it,
And sorceiy is in each hving leaf.
1 tell you something evil darkens down
Upon thifl Dun with shadow-dropping wings.
[To DiARMUID.
Hold fast to her, though death and hell come in
To sunder you. God I had I but mine eyes.
DiARMUID (angrib/)
What, would you touch the queen's hand with
your hand ?
You are too bold a beggar. Stand aside.
Hugh Dall
Danger is near the woman that I love.
And I would save her, were ahe twice a queen.
Must I stand by, and see the peril rise
Rood-high, and drown her > 1 am not a king.
., Google
DiARHUiD (jmtlung him back)
Stand back, lest I forget that you are blind.
[TAe doort at the end of the hall open slotvly,
and DoNN op thb Sandhiua tqtpeart on
the threshold. Sea-faeriet lurround fum.
DoNN {Solo)
I call thee irom the changing land
To the unchanging sea ;
I bring a bride-gift in my hand
Of immortality.
The land is fair, but fairer far
The pastures of the sea.
Canst thou reach down the lowest star ?
My sea-fires gleam for thee.
All rivers run unto one end
And perish in the sea ;
Turn thou from lover and from friend.
And give thine heart to me.
Thy love shall suffer change and dearth,
Thy friend the years estrange ;
There is no fidthfiilness on earth —
The sea will never change.
i,Mo>Goot^[e
Chorus of Sea-Faeries
[During iMs song the gaetUjall asleep in their
Come with us to that land where evermore
One listens to sweet music night and day.
Fair is green Eri, but more fiiir this shore —
O ! Beauty of all Beauty, come away.
From head to foot our bodies are like snow.
Our cheeks are red as foxglove blossoms there ;
We weave the flowers of April in our hair ;
And streams of wine and mead with warm flood flow.
O fair is Eri, but yet not so fair
As this Moy-Mell where youth grows never old ;
O ! Beauty of all Beauty, you shall wear
Upon your head a crown of faei^ gold.
Then . . . come to that green land where evv-
more
One listens to sweet music night and day.
The bell'branch is not shaken on that shore —
O ! Beauty of all Beauty, come away —
Come, come away !
DiABHUID
Is this a masque to make our feast more gay ?
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MUIRGEIS
MuiRoeu
I am grown weaiy of this revelling :
Our guests have laughed too loud. 1 would have
rest
And music, like this music that is iaint
With its own sweetness like a rose full-blown.
DlARHUID
Soon you shall rest, heart's heart, and in my arms.
[DoNN in the doonvty UJU a hand, beckoning.
MuiROEis laket one *fep fritm her hus-
bands side.
DiARHum
Call in the players to play out their play
And take their guerdon and so get them gone.
Like you, I am half dck of laugh and song ;
This music weighs like sleep upon my Uds.
Hugh Dall (tiruggling agmml the tUepspell)
This music is enchanted, and I curse
The makers of this music Name the Name
That undoes sorcery — the sacred Name.
What is this darkness that enshrouds my soul
And keeps my lips from utterance of that name ?
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MUIRGEIS
It holds me fast as in a throttling web ;
One word would break it Will not some one
Speak tbe great Name — Mauiya, even jo\i — .
You at the threshold of this dreadiul night.
The Name, the Name. Speak it
[Maurya lau^t.
Who laughed? Ah, Witch!
[Mavrya laugh* agmtt.
MUIROEIS (&>b)
The music draws me as a drop of dew
Is drawn up by the sun and seen no more.
Can this be death, this power that passes o'er
Body and soul, and breaks all bonds I knew ?
Slowly and surely sleep is wresting me
From thm dim hands that have no power to hold ;
Hands that I know were dear to me of old,
That fain would help hot cannot set me free.
I float away along a magic stream
Of music sweeter than the summer wind's.
Farewell to you, kind hands that sleep unbinds.
Farewell, you lidded eyes — make me your dream.
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Chorus of Sea-Faerieb
Wilt thou go with us, Muirgeis,
Down to the sea ?
Here's thy home.
White flowers of foam
Thy flowers shall be.
Donn of the Sandhills waits
For thy coming feet ;
The sea has set its gates
Open for thee, sweet.
Oh ! Wilt thou go with us, Muirgeis,
Down to the sea ?
The waves are calUng,
Beckoning thee.
Wave on wave gleams
Along the strand ;
Heavy with dreams
They seek the land,
Muirgeis 1
We are waiting, we are waiting
MuiROEis (singhig)
I am coming.
[MviROKugoatnamthDomi. Maurya.wAo
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MUIRGEIS
hat been Handing clote to the ihretkold,
non goesto Ike door, peen out after them,
laught and pusket the door to. She goes
to the brides seat next to Diahmuid and
teats herself in it.
Dmrhuid {ttarUng vpfrom his sleep)
Muii|^!
Scene I. — A Well at The Edge of a Wood in
Backobound.
Maurya sits beside it toiih a pitcher at herjeet.
Enter Diarmuid
Diarhuid
You are as still as if to shield §ome dream
Your flesh became impenetrable stone.
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MUIRGEIS
Maurva
I dreamed that I came, thirsting, to this well
And deeply drank, but deep enough to quench
My fiery core of thirst I could not drink.
Does my lord know such thirst ?
DiARHUlD
I bear one thirst
That never ghall be quenched until I die.
Although your heart burned with volcanic fires.
One dewdrop &lling might send comfort there.
DlARHUID
Hie fever of my fire will not abate
Until men quench their thirst with burial ale
Drunk to my name, and treading down the earth
Make aah of that which they call Diarmuid now.
[A bell tolU, and peasanU crott itage, tinging
a dirge.
Chorus of Piasants
God who makest wars to cease.
Give this troubled spirit peace ;
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MUIRGEIS
het hia portion now be rest —
Only rest
He has tasted joy and woe,
Ta'en the thom and felt the throe :
For Thy sake he let earth go —
Give him rest.
With his face towards the East
Sleeps the shepherd, sleeps the priest ;
Give him for his wage at least
Dreamless rest.
In Thy leash the storm restrain.
That be hears not wind or rain.
Till Thou Udst him rise again
With the blest
[Tk^ patt out and the bell loUt agt
DlARHUID
Who iB it that they keen fin-? Whoisdead?
Maurya
The old priest, Shane O'Reilly. It was time
He died, because he had outlived his wits.
Allowed the altar lights to gutter down,
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MUIRGEIS
Brought weeds instead of flowers to the shrine,
Fo^ot the hymns and sang old ranns instead.
And prayed to trees and rivers and the stars,
DlARUUIO
What did they want with him, the heartless Shee
Who steal the young away ? They love not age
And weakness, and the twilight of the mind.
He was so old the crows above him hung
Cawing to tell him he was ripe for death ;
He had forgotten he was ever young.
And all the joys that springtime halloweth.
He ch^d the cuckoo shouting in the tree,
The flowers for wasting gold<dust on the air,
The thnidi for singing through the vesper praya.
So Earth was angry with hitn, and the Shee
Came out irom rath and rock to work him ill.
Because he would have broken in his pride
Beauty that had no purpose save to fill
Men's eyes with loveliness, but freely gave
Her wealth to wise man, beggar, fool, and knave.
Hius he was faery-struck, and thus he died,
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DlARMUID
God give him peace !
Maurya
Why do you pray that prayer ?
You have no peace.
DlARHUtD
Therefore 1 know its worth.
lift up your head, put sorrow from your heart.
And pray a king's prayer to the kingher gods.
Maurya {Solo)
The old gods have not gone, they will not go,
llie woods behold them still, and the hills know.
At twiUght women hear them.
And fishermen draw near them.
When with the kiss of dawn the sea's aglow,
For the old gods have not gone and will not go.
Whoever walks by moonlight on the sand
May chance upon the shining track of Fand.
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MUIRGEIS
He may hear the ninth wave caUing,
See the flaming dewdrops falling.
And watch the Dagda passing, old and slow.
For the old gods have not gone, and will not go.
The birds of Angus fly in every wood.
And Dana smiles beneath the violet's hood ;
And every little river
Has a message to deliver
If the world would only wUt to hear, and know
That the old gods have not gone, and will not go.
DlARHUID
You talk of dead things.
Mauhya
They have never died.
They are not like these saints whose shadowy fame
Is as a thin smoke shaken by the wind —
A fire of rotten leaves that has no flame.
Nothing but drifts and whirb of sullen smoke ;
These are aHve, blood in their veins is red.
Hatred is hot and heavy in their hearts,
But deadlier the love-light in their eyes
Who choose and take and render not again.
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MUIHGEIS
DiARHuiD (Solo)
They do not lose their loves like tamer folk,
Or if they lose they do not grieve so long.
Knowing Time has more gifts beneath his cloak.
And that at last aU sorrow makes a song.
Nine hundred years Lir's chUdren bore their sorrow.
Their grief will be a lullaby to-morrow.
Another Diarmuid won his love, and lost
And found his love again, and ere he died
Loved his life utterly, then turned and crossed
A spear with Death, and perished, satisfied.
Fate did not buiy Grania with her lover,
But both their graves the same green grass grows
The gods love power and beauty, and naught else.
Yea, they release the hands they held in theirs
When violets fade in eyes, as flowers in dells.
And smiles are but the chasms 'twixt despairs.
Never will they remember withered flowers
Even to soy four words, "These are not ours."
Maurya
What if the gods forget, the gods can pack
Eternity in one small hour of love.
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MUIRGEIS
Til] all man's universe remembers them
Fof ever and for ever. Now's your hour
To ask of gods who love jou, and will give
With lavish hands, remembering for one hour
That you are theirs who made you. Ask, O king.
What boon you will — your hour has come to you.
DiARHUID
You offered water — what if I ask blood
To quench the thirst of steel whose nerve I am ?
I need no priestess to convince my heart
That no one vainly asks the gods for blood.
Shall it be blood, then, Maurya ?
Maury A
Hark, your sword
Rings in its sheath because we talk of war.
DlABHUID
And yet I think I would not draw my sword
If Danes were storming at my palace gates.
And Reencaharagh's roofs were all aflame.
I have not anything on earth to lose
Who have lost Muirgeis.
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MUIRGEIS j
I
Maurya
Would you lose yourself?
Speak like a king, think like a king again. |
You shall bum like a fire, and you shall have
Forests of flags to tread down underfoot !
If you will call upon my deathless gods
Who answer vengeance ere they answer love.
Women shall love you as men love Desire,
One woman shall not only call you king.
Confess you master of her life and death.
But worship you as God, lie at your feet.
And wipe the war-stains from them with her hair.
And kiss the dust from them as I do now.
/ am that woman, Diarmuid.
[Fallt at hitfeeL
DURHUID
In God's name,
Itise up!
Maurva (fiting to her kneet)
But I am prouder being here
Than Ufted up to be a queen of men.
DlARHUID
Proud— in the dust ?
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MUIRGEIS
Mausva (riiing)
Why not ? The dust long since
Lost and was comforted, ate, drank, and slept.
Laughed, loved, and mourned, and set its heart on
dust.
And pleaded to the dust, as I do now.
DlAHMUID
Did the dust plead to ears as deaf as mine ?
Maurya
My lord thall hear unless he strikes me dumb
With some word sharper than my love can bear.
And yet I think the love could bear all words
That bore to see you shrink from its frank flame
As if there were such thing as sullied fire.
Although the heart it did devour were hell's.
I am past shaming, being lifted up
— No, not cast down, my king — ^with love that
knows
No ri^ts except its own, no laws, no bounds.
I will not be ashamed for loving you —
I justify myself with loving you.
Let my lord look me in the face, and say
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If this my love be not a gift for kings
To lift up from the dnst — to keep — to keep ?
DlARMUID
If I were flesh and blood, 1 should be wroth
Because you hold man's &ith so cheap a thing.
Being a stone, I am not wroth or shamed,
Nor moved except to wonder at your fire
Spent on my coldness.
Maurva
You are not a stone.
Did you not kindle when Muirgeis's eyes
Dwelt upon you a little ? Now my soul
Dwells upon you and worships and desires.
Will you not bum as I do ? Is there not
Fire in this rock for me ?
DlARMUID
Cease. There nww fire
That answered Muirgeia It is ashes now.
Maurva
But if one kneels and blows upon gray ash
Sometimes a flame leaps up where aU seemed daik.
Shall not my breath make this fire bum again ?
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MUIRGEIS
DiARMUID
Will you be lonely all your days.
Alone at nights to bear delusive dreams ?
DiARMUID
I dream of Muirgeis, and if waking be
A lonely thing, man may grow used to grief.
And I will bear mine till she comes again.
Maurya
Diarmuid, she will not come though you should bear
Your sorrow as a woman bears her child.
With gladne&s and with trembling. She foi^ets —
Your very name is strange to her.
DiARHuiD (Jiercel^)
AUe,
Though all your Gods should shout itfix)m the skies.
Madrya (^pattumateb/)
Dianmdd^-—
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DiAfUIUID
I will not hear you. Loose my arm.
^PusktHg her awty.
Lose memory of Muirgeis in your arms ?
Cover my eyes with your bright locks of hair.
Lest I should dream of tresses black as night ?
Nay, do not speak or cling about my knees —
Lightning that God decrees shall smite a tower
Halts not whatever iviea clasp its walb,
But cleavesat once through clingingarms and stone.
I dare not pity you, for I must strike
Lightnings of truth against this love of yours
And shatter it to pieces round us both. [Exit
Maorva
What Is there left to live for in this earth ?
Nothing remains, so now for nothingness.
Donn of the Sandhills, come to me again.
[DoNN i^>pears milk some Jiterier. Their
faces are angry and sorromjul.
Donn
What would you have now ?
i,M(>Goo*^[c
MUIRGEIS
Mauhya
And what is this to me ?
Maurya
Enough. You're here.
With all your power submissive to a cry.
Give Mnirgeis back to Diarmuid. 1 repent —
I break the pact I made.
There are few gods
Would answer, save by lightning, such a prayer.
Maurya
I am too sad to fear your lightnings, Donn.
DoNN
Cannot your wild red beauty blot her out
Of Diarmuid'a memory, even as fire
Eats up the writing on a Druid scroll,
Though it was covered with the names of gods ?
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Haubya
My beauty b a nettle, not a fire ;
Myself is blistered, Diarmuid is not warmed.
I have no heart to struggle any more.
DoNN (immlmgtr/)
These two that are too strong for all your craft.
Be sure that they will smile and pity you —
And o'er their pity smear a sly contempt
For one who had not courage for ber bate.
Chorus op Sea-Faeribs
Ah ! fool and blind, you asked and did not knoir.
And now again you know not what you ask ;
You draw your band back from your chosen task.
Too weak a thing for perfect joy or woe.
You are not strong enough to let your Hate
Conduct you unto Its appointed end.
You'd have two goals to win, two ways to wend.
For ever you shall stand outside love's gate.
Heaven will have none of you, earth will hare
You are denied of darkness and the Bun.
i,Mo>Goot^[e
Mauhya
I know. My will is broken — so am I.
Down
You are of those that do not dare to live.
So have no part with the undying ones
Who made themselves immortal with great sins,
A shining love or an eternal hate.
You could not strike your blow, and be content
With what you sinned your soul for, though you
dwelt
Under hell's porches all your flaming days.
Maubya
Your scorn can beat me down no lower,
DoNN (muling)
No.
For you remember once how high you stood,
How sure of Diarmuid's love you were.
Have done.
Give Muirgeis back to him and let me die.
i,M(> Google
DoNN (Soh)
Thou shall not die but live —
This doom I give —
Thou shalt not die but live, and bear in thee
The sorrow of the sea.
Because thy love was stronger than thine hate,
Our fate shall be thy fate.
Because much bitterness thy soul has known,
We take thee for our own.
A wave upon the sea
Thou shalt have many voices, but no words,
Loveless as rocks shalt be.
And wild as the sea-birds.
The hail shall lash thee, and the caves shall keep
For thee no place of sleep.
The wind shall drive thee shorewards 'mid the
foam.
But never bring thee home.
Thou shalt be companied by foam and weed.
But have no friend.
Far shalt thou wander, yet thou shalt not speed,
Strive to no end.
Anger and Love to thee were evil guides.
Quenched is thy star :
i,M(> Google
MUIRGEIS
Thau shalt be homeless as the wandering tides
And the tossed seaweeds are.
[Mauhya falls _<m her face ai Donn's fed.
Curtain
Scene II. — O'Gni eve's Hall as before.
DiARUUiD lying on couch (»/ the heartl^lace
DuRUViD {raidng hhuelf on his arm)
I thought the door moved under some one's hand.
Some one afraid to knock or enter in.
Muirgeis, belov^, is jour ghost outside }
Enter, O little ghost, and come to me.
Kiss me to death and I shall be content.
It is not Muirgeis. [Siting.
She would never stand
Indifierent, and hear me call on her
As the gods stood of old when £ri cried.
Sick with the plague, stabbed at by Danish swords.
DiARMUiD (Solo)
My heart is heavy night and day, my fair love
leaving me.
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MUIRGEIS
That from my path you turned away to dwell
among the Sliee,
Where none grows old and none grows cold for
hope or memory ;
I am most sad while you are glad, my &ir love
leaving me.
Now every day and all night long I wear the bitter
rue
And hear a wayward feery song when I would
dream of you.
In all men's ears my tale is told, my grief's for all
to see.
Sod for your sake I sleep and wake, my fair love
leaving me.
You come not even to my dreams between the
night and day.
And have you drunk of faery streams that washed
your love away,
O heart of gold, and left you cold as water and as
free?
Ah ! wirrasthrue, my heart's with you, my fair love
leaving me.
[Enter Huoh Dall and Crohan shaitHg
the ram from their garnietiU.
334
i,Mo>Goot^[e
MUIRGEIS
Crohan
It rains as if the dams of God had burst, '
And 'twas His mind to drown the world a^ain.
HuoM Dall
The genUe people are abroad to-night ;
I felt their rain-cold fingers plucking me.
To-morrow we shall hear of stolen girls
And men drowned at the fords
Crohan (tnterruptwtg)
Be silent, Hugh !
Talk not of thefts — there is a robbed man here,
[Looking at Diarmuid.
HuoH Dall
How could I know it, man ? I have no sense
To tell me when I'm near an empty heart
DiARUViD Qaokitig up)
Is it so wild a night ?
Crdhan
I never saw
A sky so fiiU of hurrying rags of cloud,
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HUIRGEIS
There is no moon, and all the stars are quenched,
And the wind crawls and shudders through the fern
Like a wild beast in hiding.
Hugh Dall
All the doors
Are bolted in the village, lest the wind
Should pluck them open, and such folk pass in
As are not made of flesh and blood and bone.
But builded up of fire and dew and dreams.
DlARHVID
There are nodreams worth dreaming, since no dream
Restores her to me.
Hugh Dall
Yet she is not far
From you to-night, for this is Hallows E'en,
When all the Shee are busy in our world.
And dead men rise again from churchyard earth.
Brown boglands, and the ooze of river-beds.
HuoH Dall (Solo)
The mothers gather round the fire
And tell old tales with wistful breath
336
i,M(>Goo*^[c
MUIRGEIS
Of fer-off lands of heart's-desire
Wherein no soul sh&ll taste of death.
And Connla's name each woman saith
As she sits spinning by the fire.
To-right is Hallows Eve, to-night
Dead men arise and leave their graves.
The sea-wives call among the waves.
The Shee are strong with double might.
The last man dead a comrade craves.
And ogham stones find tongues to-night.
Crohan
To-night men find in dreams what they have lost.
DtARUUiD (impatienil^)
I'm sick of dreams and dreamers. Let me be.
One talks, another prsys, a third one tries
An idiot's charm, and still she never comes.
I'm sick of all your wisdom.
Hugh Dall
Peace, for shame !
If she should come to-night from Tir-na-n'Og,
Where always men have honey on their tongues,
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MUIRGBIS
And wit and laughter and sweet coortesy.
And, ere her fingers raised your door-latch, hear
Your wordsjshe would turn hack in grief and shame.
DuRHUiD (^Kinging up)
Are you all awom to-night to drive me mad ?
Hugh Dall
[Gropes hU nm/ to Diaruuid and loacha him
on the arm.
Bethink you of your birth. Are kings driven m&d
By words, mere words, although they buzz like
ffiesf'
The darkness that has coffined me from light
Caged not my soul, else were 1 not a man —
And are you not a man who are a king ?
DiARHUiD ^heamfy)
A man whom sorrow will not quit till death.
I hear already her departing feet.
And other feet are on the threshold now.
i,M(>Goo*^[c
MUIRGEIS
DURMUID
The feet I hear are but the feet of Hope,
Whom I have driven from me, as a thief
Who steals from men the strength to bear their
dooms.
DiARHUiD AND Hugh Dall (^Duel)
Hugh Dall
Thou that of Hope wast tortured yesterday
No more shalt suffer, for she turns away
Her head, gold-crowned with flowers and spikes
of whin —
But who is this (Mmes in f
DiARHUID
Is it not Death that comes my grief to end ?
They stand aside, my lover and my fiiend.
And pity not, but surely Death will come
With comfort swift and dmab.
Come, Death, on noiseless feet, take my disaster,
Tlie grief that breaks me, bind it with the vaster
Sorrows of yesterday in thy great sheaf,
O harvester of grief.
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MUIRGEIS
Hugh Dall
The hand that hesitates is not Death's htmd.
The faltering foot is not the foot of Death,
He has no need to stand at clos^ doors.
[Soft knodang heard.
Open the door to her.
CftOHAN
Are you gone mad P
Has the great rain washed your last wits vmy ?
It is the wind that fiunbles at the door.
DlARMUID
1 am shut out fiom all I love on earth.
And so I have no love for fastened doors.
Even the wind is welcome to come in.
Open the door to whosoever knocks.
My servant, must thy lord speak twice i
i,M(> Google
Crohan
[Going lo the door, and kesUaiiag milk hit
hand upon it.
It is the faeries' weather, and the time
When dead men rise to seek the living out.
If 'twere a faery's hand upon the door —
DiARHUID
They've entered once, and shall come in again
If 'tis their pleasure.
[Comes forward OHgriU/, and throws the door
open, Crohan har^ thrust behind it, and
discovers Muiroeis on the threshold, clad
in green with yellow roses in htr hair.
Id God's name, come in.
Muirgeis, the blind man saw you, and not I —
O love, come back at last !
[Takes her in Ms arms.
I have come back
Only half glad, like smue one bom again. [Aside.
i,Mo>Goot^[e
Crohan
Is it the living lady or her ghost ?
Hugh Dall [Scornful^.
Why, even I have clearer ejres to see. '
Crohan
You do not see that she is white as snow.
I think it is her spirit after all.
[Th^ come donm stage, teai^g MuiROEis and
DiAELHUiD together.
DiARHUID AND MuiROEIS (DtK^)
DiARHUID
Ah, sweet, to hold you to my heart again,
And see your face unchanged look up at me.
My face is changed, Love, with this half-year's
pain.
Leaves were not green to me, nor flax-flowers blue.
Now are my chains undone, and I am free.
And my life quickens like a flower anew.
Breaks bud and shakes out blossom, seeing you.
332
i,Mo>Goot^[e
MUIRQEIS
It seemed to me that in a sun-girt bower
I drank of sunlight one immortal hour.
Because there is no sunset for the Shea.
DiARHVID
For me there was no night, there was no day,
Only a hollow peopled by dead clay.
MuiROEis Qoucking her garland)
I do not think that these pale roses knew
Aught of the clay ; they lived on light and dew.
DiARMUID
Your voice is music, but your words are chilled
With something supernatural and strange.
I would these roses were lusmairi, plucked
But now, yet homesick for their Irish bogs.
Speak again, dear, and call me by my name
That was not sweet until you uttered it
MuiROBia
I knew your name — it trembles on my tongue.
Refusing sound. This only I recall,
A word more &ir than even roses.
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MUIBGEIS
Hugh Dall
Love?
[Crohan fftes out.
DiARHUID
Ay " love," although love looks upon me now
With eyes that know the thing her lips forget.
\BitteAy.
O when did Diarmuld steal the name of God,
That he should nameless be to his heart's heart?
\LeU her hands go.
MinRO&is
Your eyes would tell men you are not a God
Whatever splendid lie were on your lips.
For they are sad and angiy.
DlARHUID
They may be ;
Was ever man's prayer answered so before ?
Are there no Gods but jesters ?
MuiBOEIS
There are Gods,
For I have seen them.
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MUIRGEIS
DURMUID
Therefore you have seen
What mortal should not look upon and live.
Turn your eyes from me, Muirgeis, for they bum.
MuiRQEIB
I have seen Gods and died not, and mine eyes
That saw theirs scatheless yours need never fear.
They always smiled. If mortals crossed their wills,
It might be that they slew, but still they smiled.
Dl ARK HID
Foiget the Gods, remember this one man
Who loved and lost and hungered after you.
And loves you stilt, and hungers while you stand
With hps that smile while saying " I forget"
MuiROEis
How should one not forget what passed on earth
Who has spent seven days in Faeryland ?
DiARHUlD
Seven days ? 'tis half a year.
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MUIRGEIS
MuiRQKis (startled)
I did not know.
Seven days were all I counted.
DiARHUID
Is this love
That can forget love's name in seven days ?
Why, f remembered you and wept for you
And cursed the light that did not shine on you,
Muii^is, for half a year.
MmRoKiB (tumtng to Hugh Dall)
Are you of those
I should remember?
HuoH Dall
f am one of those
Who have remembered Muirgeis half a year.
IVruuid
Dead love remembered is a kinder thing,
A warmer thing to lay into the breast
For comfort than a Uving love like this.
O Muii^eis, better to have seen your ghost
i,M(> Google
MUIBGEIS
Smile through the frosts of death than see you
A stranger to yourself.
Huou Dall
My king does ill
To cry his anguish out into a shell
That can but whisper into every ear
Its faint reverberation of the sea.
DiARMUlD (Solo)
O body of all beauty that I loved
And love, where is the soul gone forth Srom you,
The white soul clearer than the morning dew.
More lovely than a rainbow after rain.
Will you not quicken in my arms anew,
Muirgeis ?
You were a torch that in dark places moved
And led lost footsteps to the kindly plain.
You were as (ragrant as the trodden thyme
That breathes all sweetness from the heart of ptdn.
Blessing the feet that bruise it as they climb.
You were as gracious as the evening rain
To wounded men that bore the battle-strain,
»37
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MUIRGEIS
But had no part in victory or defeat.
body of all beauty, soul most sweet.
Will you be twain that once in one were knit,
Muirgeis ? [Speais.
Muir^s, my wife
Hugh Dall
The faeries have not loosed
Their hold on her, nor will they till ahe weeps,
[The doors are Ikronrn open and O'Gnieve
enters /mrriedlt/, mtk attendants. He
embraces Muiroeis, who stands passive.
O'Gnikvb
1 thought that I should die a childless man
And never see or hear you any more,
O bird of love, thrice welcome to your nest !
MUIROBIB
What voice is that which calls and cries outside ?
e that you shall answer—
"38
..Google
MUIRGEIS
O'Gnikve
There's no sound
Except a curlew crying on the bog,
A skein of wild geese going to the sea.
[Mttik outside.
MuiROBIS
Was I not caUed f
DiARHUID
No, sweet, not while I live
To make for you a chain of flesh and blood.
Body and spirit. Once I let yon go.
But not a second time.
O'Gnieve
Call Maurya here.
Bid her unbind these roses from your hair.
They are not garlands for an Irish queen.
But meet for some wild woman of the Shee.
MuiROEIS
I know thai name. Bid Maurya wait on us.
[Exit an attendant.
i,M(> Google
HUIROEIS
DlARUUID
Do you remember her name and n&t mine ?
Is hatred Btrong as lave ?
MUIROEIS
Hatred and love.
Sorrow and doubt, desire, despair, disdain.
Mean notiiing to me now.
Did they mean aught ?
Hugh Dall
They are the world, and they were you, my queen.
Hatred, like love, draws sparks from hearts of
stone:
Lips cannot keep their sweetness without sighs.
Eyes cannot keep their brightness without tears.
MuiRQEIS
Have mine eyes lost their light then ?
DiARHUlD
No, they bum
Too brightly for this world of shade and shine,
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MUIRGEIS
DiARMCiD (Solo)
Your eyes are over-bright, your laughter rings
Too gaily for this world of shine and showers.
Think of all gray, remote, and hapless things.
Lost ships, and fallen trees, and farewell hours.
That miss the very words they meant to say.
Mothers that raise to heaven a childless cry ;
A rainbow of five colours in the sky,
A witless brain that makes the children mirth, -
A graceless tale that is too old to die,
And beauty bringing sin upon the earth.
[A cry heard from ouUide.
MUIROEIS
Is this the sorrow you would have me know —
This wandering voice that cries outside the door ?
[The doors open and the body of Maurya m
brought through the hall. The Banshe^t
keen is heard outside.
MuiROEis (harrying to the bier)
O little sister, is it thus you come
To bid me welcome home P
R 241
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MUIRGEIS
[She bursts into lean and turns to her husband
mih outstretched Honda.
O Diannuid, Di&rmuid !
Come to me, comfort me. What thing is this
Tb&t lies before me here and does not epeak,
Though my tears drop upon it ?
DiARHUiD (taking her in his utths)
Why, my sweet.
This thing is sorrow and the half of love.
[As the curtiun descends the voice of Donn it
heard outside sitging.
A wave upon the sea,
Thou shalt have many voices, but no words.
Loveless as rocks shalt be,
And wild as the sea-birds.
Curtain
Printtdiy R. & R. CuutK, LiHtTKD. Edoiiiirgk.
i,Mo>Goot^[e
i,M(> Google
i,M(>Goo*^[c
(> Google
i,M(> Google
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